Fabric Extension (FEX)

Terminology VN-TAG & E-TAG Encapsulation

N2K Fabric Extender (FEX) Managed as line carf of parent switch

RSVD 1 bit
Etype DST Ver SRC

D
P

L
0X8926 VIF_ID VIF_ID
(9K/7K/6K/5K), no local switching, traffic between local port flow
16 bit 14 bit 2 bit 12 bit

1 bit
1 bit

1 bit
“north” via uplink to parent and then “south” back down. No console
port or software, NX-OS automatically downloaded from parent VN-TAG Frame (6 Bytes)
switch.Uses Cisco VN-TAG or pre-standard IEEE 802.1BR

RSVD 2 bit
Etype Ingress Extended RSVD

PCP 3 bit
DEI 1 bit
0X893F ECID ECID
Host Interface (HIF) Physical user/host interfaces on the FEX that
16 bit 12 bit 14 bit 16 bit
receive normal ethernet traffic before it is encapsulated with tag
E-TAG Frame (8 bytes)
Network Interface (NIF) Physical uplink interface on the FEX that
connect back to the parent switch and carries only tagged traffic DMAC SMAC VN-TAG 802.1Q Etype Payload FCS
E-TAG
Logical Interface (LIF) Logical representation of the HIF on the 6 bytes 6 bytes 6/8 bytes 4 bytes 2 bytes 46~9000 bytes 4 bytes
parent switch (LIF Notation : Eth(fex/mod/port), I.e. (eth 101/1/1)) Classical Ethernet Frame with VN-TAG or E-TAG Header
Virtual Interface (VIF) Logical interface on the FEX, parent * D: Direction, P: Unicast/Multicast, P=1 (Multicast), L:Loop, RSVD: Reserved

switch assigns/pushes the config of a LIF to the VIF of an VN-TAG Cisco standard which provides a mechanism for
associated FEX which is mapped to a physical HIF. physical downstream ports to be controlled by a logical port
FEX and STP Layer 2 FEX ports are STP “edge” ports and are on the parent switch. Add additional header to the Ethernet
not subject to STP listening & learning delay. They run as BPDU frame which allows individual identification for virtual interfaces
Gaurd and BPDU are not sent out of edge ports. Edge port will (VIF) or identifier carrying source/destination interface ID
be error disabled state when a BPDU is recived 802.1BR (Bridge Port Extension) Standardized equivalent of Cisco
VNTag, identified by ECID tag (E-TAG) and support cascading Port
Connection Model Fex support traffic distribution base on static
Extenders. Consist of Controlling Bridge + Port Extender Bridge
pinning and etherchannel. By pinning the host interface (HIF) to
use individual Network Interface (NIF) or base on port channel Adapter FEX
LACP load balancing faeture
Nexus 5K/ vETH 1 Virtual Interfaces (VIF)
Fabric Interconnect vETH 2 (vETH or vFC)
Legacy Vs. FEX Switch Port Architecture Parent Switch vFC 1
...
LAN LAN VN-TAG/
IEEE 802.1BR

Parent Switch/ Logical Interface (LIF) NIV Capable Adapter

Controlling ETH 101/1/1
Bridge ETH 101/1/2 Switch
ETH 101/1/3
... Server

VN-TAG/ 802.1Q
IEEE 802.1BR VN-TAG 1
vHBA 1
vNIC 1
vNIC 2

Network Uplink/Trunk
VN-TAG 2
...

Interface (NIF) Port

ETH 1/47-48 Fabric Extender VN-TAG 3
ETH 1/47-48
Cisco Nexus 2200
Switch Adapter FEX Extension of 802.1BR to Server Adapter or
Series/Port Extender
ETH 1/1
ETH 1/2
ETH 1/3

Bridge ETH 1/1-46 Consolidates multiple virtual interface into single physical
VN-TAG 1 Access Port
...

VN-TAG 2 interface and extend the network into the server by controlling
VN-TAG 3 Host Interface(HIF) the virtual interfaces from the switch
FEX Configuration VM-FEX
# Initialize FEX feature set
vHBA 1

vHBA 2

Virtual Interfaces (VIF)

vNIC 1

vNIC 2

feature fex (5K/6K) (vETH or vFC)

install feature-set fex & feature-set fex (7K) vETH 1
vFC 1 VM VM
# Configure downlinks to FEX vETH 2 VMware
interface port-channel 1 vFC
... 2
switchport mode fex-fabric
NIV Capable Adapter
fex associate 101
Export Hypervisor
Port Profile Manager
show interface [fex-fabric | po 1 fex-intf]
show fex 101 detail VM-FEX Extension of 802.1BR and adapter FEX to the
show module fex hypervisor. Each VM is given its own virtual NIC on the Virtual
show diag result fex 101
show environment fex 101
Interface Card (VIC) where frames received from the VM are
show sprom fex 101 all marked on the uplink port with a VN-Tag and sent to the upstream
last update Feb 28, 2017 (version 1.00)
References: https://cloudpacket.net/bookmarks/ Prepared By Shakib Shaygan