Creating Layer 2 Extension with NDFC

Hello. My name is Tomas Klenschnik. I am a Cisco data center network subject matter expert with the Cisco technical education team. In this video, you will create layer two extension with Nexus dashboard fabric controller. You will begin with creating an external fabric in NexSys dashboard fabric controller. You will continue with deploying a network to interfaces in an existing VXLAN EVPN fabric, and you will finish with validating layer two connectivity between the fabrics. Let's look at an example where you have a legacy environment with a Cisco Nexus switch called external and an endpoint called web two in VLAN one hundred and IP address one hundred dot one dot one dot one zero one slash twenty four. Recently, you've implemented VXLAN EVPN Fabric called Fabric with two leaf and two spine switches in your environment. You have a web one endpoint in VLAN one hundred and IP address one hundred dot one dot one dot one hundred slash twenty four connected to the fabric. Now you would like to make a layer two extension from fabric to your external legacy environment. Your first task is to configure external fabric in Exos dashboard fabric controller and add a switch external to the fabric. You will then create a network for VLAN one hundred in fabric and allow it on the interfaces connecting fabric to web one endpoint and external fabric. You will preview and deploy configuration in fabric. To verify the layer two connectivity, you will check if the two endpoints in VLAN one hundred, that is web one and web two, can ping each other. First, check the existing VXLAN EVPN fabric called fabric. Log in to Nexu's dashboard fabric controller, navigate to topology, and double click fabric. You can see two spine and two leaf switches in the fabric. There aren't any networks or VRFs created. Now verify that layer two connectivity between web one and web two endpoints currently doesn't work. Open a PuTTY session to web one endpoint. Try to ping web two IP address. Type ping one hundred dot one dot one dot one zero one. You can see ping is not successful. You will now configure an external fabric. In Nexu's dashboard fabric controller, navigate to LAN and click on fabrics. Click on actions and choose create fabric. Give your fabric a name. In this example, use external and click choose fabric. Since your external network is a legacy environment, choose classic LAN template and click select. You will not push any configuration to your external fabric, so keep fabric monitor mode checked and click save. You can now see a new fabric called external in the list of LUN fabrics with LUN classic technology and external fabric type. Double click external fabric. Navigate to switches tab. Click on actions and choose add switches. In the seed IP field, write the management IP of the external switch that is ten dot one seven seven dot one five six dot one one seven for this example. Enter the username and password for the admin user. Since in this example, there is only one switch in the external fabric, select max hops to zero. Select discover switches. In the discovery results pane, choose external switch and click add switches. Wait for a couple of seconds until the status shows switch added. Click close. You now see a switch external listed in the switches tab with discovery status okay. Select external switch, click actions, and choose set role. This is an access layer switch in your legacy environment, so select roll access and click select. Close fabric overview window. Click topology. Double click fabric. You can see external fabric is physically connected to leaf two. Now go back to fabric step and double click fabric. Navigate to network step, click actions, and choose create to create a network for VLAN one hundred. Give a name to your network. In this example, type in VLAN one hundred. There is no VRF created at the moment, so click create VRF. Give a VRF a name and VRF ID. In this example, you will just use the default values. Click create. Put in a network ID for your network. In this example, choose ten thousand. Add a VLAN ID. For this example, type in one hundred. Scroll down and define a gateway. In this example, type in one hundred dot one dot one dot two five four slash twenty four. Click create. Your network is now listed under the networks tab. Close fabric overview window and navigate to switches under the LAN tab. Double click leaf one. Click the networks tab. Choose network attachments vertical tab. You can see VLAN one hundred is currently detached. Select VLAN one hundred, click actions, and choose edit. Move the slider to attach and select interface Ethernet one slash three that connects leaf one to web one endpoint. Click save. You can see VLAN one hundred is attached, but status is still pending. Before the deployment, repeat the procedure for leaf two. Close the switch overview window and double click leaf two. Click the networks tab. Choose network attachments vertical tab. You can see VLAN one hundred is currently detached. Select VLAN one hundred, click actions, and choose edit. Move the slider to attach and select interface Ethernet one slash four that connects leaf two to external switch. Click save. You can see VLAN one hundred is attached, but status is still pending. Close the switch overview window, click on fabric step, and double click fabric. Click actions and choose recalculate and deploy. After a few seconds, you can see leaf one and leaf two switches are out of sync and they have sixty three lines of pending configuration. Click on the pending configuration of leaf one switch. Scroll down to see the VRF and VLAN configuration that is going to be applied on the switch. Click close and then deploy all. Wait for a couple of seconds for status to go from started to success on both leaf switches. Click close. Refresh the screen to see all switches are in sync. Now it's time to check the layer two connectivity between web one and web two endpoints. Reopen a PuTTY session to web one endpoint. Try to ping web two IP address. Enter ping one hundred dot one dot one dot one zero one. Web one can now successfully ping web two. This concludes the Cisco technical education video on creating layer two extension with Cisco Nexus dashboard fabric controller. Thank you for watching.