Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Verified Scalability
Verified Scale Limits for Release 12.1.2e
This section provides verified scalability values for various deployment types for Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller, Release 12.1.2e.
The values are validated on testbeds that are enabled with a reasonable number of features and aren’t theoretical system limits for Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller software or Cisco Nexus/MDS switch hardware and software. When you try to achieve maximum scalability by scaling multiple features at the same time, results might differ from the values that are listed here.
Nexus Dashboard Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements
The following table provides information about Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements to run NDFC on top of Nexus Dashboard. Refer to Nexus Dashboard Capacity Planning to determine the number of switches supported for each deployment.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard can be deployed using number of different form factors. NDFC can be deployed on the following form factors:
-
pND - Physical Nexus Dashboard
-
vND - Virtual Nexus Dashboard
-
rND - RHEL Nexus Dashboard
Deployment Type | Node Type | CPUs | Memory | Storage (Throughput: 40-50 MB/s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fabric Discovery | Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA |
16 vCPUs |
64 GB |
550 GB SSD |
Physical Node (pND) (PID: SE-NODE-G2 and ND-NODE-L4) |
2 x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU |
256 GB of RAM |
4 x 2.4 TB HDDs 400 GB SSD 1.2 TB NVME drive |
|
Fabric Controller | Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA | 16 vCPUs | 64 GB | 550 GB SSD |
Physical Node (pND) (PID: SE-NODE-G2 and ND-NODE-L4) |
2 x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU |
256 GB of RAM |
4 x 2.4 TB HDDs 400 GB SSD 1.6 TB NVME drive |
|
SAN Controller |
Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA (without SAN Insights) |
16 vCPUs (with physical reservation) |
64 GB (with physical reservation) |
550 GB SSD |
App Node (rND) (without SAN Insights) |
16 vCPUs (with physical reservation) |
64 GB (with physical reservation) |
550 GB SSD | |
Data Node (vND) – Data OVA (with SAN Insights) |
32 vCPUs (with physical reservation) |
128GB (with physical reservation) |
3 TB SSD |
|
Data Node (rND) (with SAN Insights) |
32 vCPUs (with physical reservation) |
128 GB (with physical reservation) |
3 TB SSD |
|
Physical Node (pND) (PID: SE-NODE-G2 and ND-NODE-L4) |
2 x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU |
256 GB of RAM |
4 x 2.4 TB HDDs 400 GB SSD 1.6 TB NVME drive |
Scale Limits for NDFC Fabric Discovery
Profile |
Deployment Type |
Verified Limit |
---|---|---|
Fabric Discovery |
1-Node vND (app OVA) |
<= 25 switches (Non-Production) |
Fabric Discovery |
3-Node vND (app OVA) |
150 Switches |
Fabric Discovery |
5-Node vND (app OVA) |
1000 Switches |
Fabric Discovery |
3-Node pND |
1000 Switches |
Scale Limits for NDFC Fabric Controller
Profile |
Deployment Type |
Verified Limit |
---|---|---|
Fabric Controller (Non-Production) |
1-Node vND (app OVA) |
<= 25 switches (Non-Production) |
Fabric Controller |
3-Node vND (app OVA) |
80 Switches |
Fabric Controller |
5-Node vND (app OVA) |
400 switches for Easy Fabrics1 1000 switches for External Fabrics2 |
Fabric Controller |
3-Node pND |
500 switches for Easy Fabrics1 1000 switches for External Fabrics2 |
1 Easy Fabrics include Data Center VXLAN EVPN fabrics and BGP fabrics.
2External Fabrics include Flexible Network fabrics, Classic LAN fabrics, External Connectivity Network fabrics, and Multi-Site Interconnect Network fabrics. Both managed and monitored mode are supported.
Description |
Verified Limit |
---|---|
Switches per fabric |
200 |
Number of fabrics |
25 |
Physical Interfaces per NDFC instance |
30000 |
Description |
Verified Limit |
---|---|
Fabric Underlay Overlay | |
Switches per fabric |
200 |
Overlay Scale for VRFs and Networks |
500 VRFs, 2000 Layer-3 Networks or 2500 Layer-2 Networks |
VRF instances for external connectivity |
500 |
IPAM Integrator application |
150 networks with a total of 4K IP allocations on the Infoblox server |
ToR and Leaf devices |
A Data Center VXLAN EVPN fabric can manage both Layer-2 ToRs and Leafs. Maximum scale for such fabric is 40 Leafs and 240 ToRs. |
Endpoint Locator | |
Endpoints | 100000 |
VXLAN EVPN Multi-Site Domain |
|
Sites |
12 |
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) |
|
Virtual Machines (VMs) |
5500 |
VMware Center Servers |
4 |
Kubernetes Visualizer application |
Maximum of 159 namespaces with maxium of 1002 pods |
Note |
Refer to the following table if you are transitioning a command line interface (CLI) configured Cisco Nexus 9000 series switches based VXLAN EVPN fabric to NDFC. |
Description |
Verified Limit |
---|---|
Fabric Underlay and Overlay | |
Switches per fabric | 100 |
Physical Interfaces | 5000 |
VRF instances | 100 |
Overlay networks | 500 |
VRF instances for external connectivity | 100 |
Endpoint Locator | |
Endpoints | 50000 |
IPAM Integrator application | 150 networks with a total of 4K IP allocations on the Infoblox server |
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) |
|
Virtual Machines (VMs) |
5500 |
VMware Center Servers |
4 |
Kubernetes Visualizer application |
Maximum of 159 namespaces with maxium of 1002 pods |
Scale Limits for Cohosting NDFC and other Services
Profile |
Deployment Type |
Verified Limit |
---|---|---|
NexusDashboard Insights and Nexus Dashboard Fabric Discovery |
4-Node pND |
50 switches, 10K Flows |
NexusDashboard Insights and Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller |
5-Node pND |
50 switches, 10K Flows |
Scale Limits for IPFM Fabrics
Profile |
Deployment Type |
Verified Limit |
---|---|---|
Fabric Controller |
1-Node vND |
35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs) |
Fabric Controller |
3-Node vND |
35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs) |
Fabric Controller |
1-Node pND |
35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs) |
Fabric Controller |
3-Node pND |
120 switches (2 Spines and 100 Leafs and 18 Tier-2 Leafs) |
Description |
Verified Limit |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
NBM Active Mode Only |
NBM Passive Mode Only |
Mixed Mode |
||
NBM Active VRF |
NBM Passive VRF |
|||
Switches |
120 |
32 |
32 |
32 |
Number of flows |
32000 |
32000 |
32000 |
32000 |
Number of End Points (Discovered Hosts) |
5000 |
1500 |
3500 |
1500 |
VRFs |
16 |
16 |
16 |
16 |
Host Policy - Sender |
8000 |
NA |
8000 |
NA |
Host Policy - Receiver |
8000 |
NA |
8000 |
NA |
Host Policy - PIM (Remote) |
512 |
NA |
512 |
NA |
Flow Policy |
2500 |
NA |
2500 |
NA |
NBM ASM group-range |
20 |
NA |
20 |
NA |
Host Alias |
2500 |
NA |
2500 |
NA |
Flow Alias |
2500 |
NA |
2500 |
NA |
NAT Flows |
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
RTP Flow Monitoring |
8000 |
8000 |
8000 |
8000 |
PTP Monitoring |
120 switches |
32 switches |
32 switches |
32 switches |
Scale Limits for NDFC SAN Controller
Description |
Verified Limits |
---|---|
Zone sets |
1000 |
Zone |
16000 |
Profile |
Deployment Type |
Verified Limit |
|
---|---|---|---|
Without SAN Insights |
With SAN Insights |
||
SAN Controller |
1-Node vND (app OVA) |
80 Switches, 20K Ports |
NA |
1-Node vND (data OVA) |
80 Switches, 20K Ports |
1M ITLs/ITNs |
|
1-Node pND (SE) |
80 Switches, 20K Ports |
120K ITLs/ITNs |
|
SAN Controller |
3-Node vND (app OVA) |
160 Switches, 40K Ports |
NA |
3-Node vND (data OVA) |
160 Switches, 40K Ports |
240K ITLs/ITNs |
|
3-Node pND |
160 Switches, 40K Ports |
500K ITLs/ITNs |
|
SAN Controller on Linux (rND) (Install Profile: Default) |
1-Node vND |
80 Switches, 20K Ports |
NA |
SAN Controller on Linux (rND) (Install Profile: Large) |
1-Node vND |
80 Switches, 20K Ports |
1M ITLs/ITNs |
SAN Controller on Linux (rND) (Install Profile: Default) |
3-Node vND |
160 Switches, 40K Ports |
NA |
SAN Controller on Linux (rND) (Install Profile: Large) |
3-Node vND |
160 Switches, 40K Ports |
240K ITLs/ITNs |
Note |
ITLs - Initiator-Target-LUNs ITNs - Initiator-Target-Namespace ID |