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Cisco Prime Network 4.0 User Guide
OL-29343-01
Chapter 26 Monitoring Data Center Configurations
Virtual Port Channel (vPC)
Figure 26-1 vPC Architecture
A vPC consists of the following components:
• Two vPC peer switches, among which one is primary and one is secondary. The system formed by
the two peer switches is referred to as a vPC domain.
• A peer link, also known as multichassis EtherChannel trunk (MCT), which connects the vPC peer
switches. A peer link is a redundant 10 Gigabit Ethernet Port Channel,which is used to carry traffic
from one system to the other when needed and to synchronize forwarding tables.
• vPC member ports that form the PortChannel and are split between the vPC peers.
• A routed link, called as a vPC peer-keepalive or fault-tolerant link is a Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet link,
used to resolve dual-active scenarios where the peer link connectivity is lost.
A vPC domain is associated to a single Virtual Device Context (VDC), so all vPC interfaces belonging
to a given vPC domain must be defined in the same VDC. You must have a separate vPC peer link and
peer keepalive link infrastructure for each VDC deployed. Consolidating a vPC pair (two vPC peer
devices of the same domain) in two VDCs of the same physical device is not supported. The vPC peer
link must use 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports for both ends of the link; otherwise, the link will not be formed.
A vPC provides the following benefits:
• Allows a single device to use a port channel across two upstream devices
• Eliminates STP blocked ports
• Provides a loop-free topology
• Uses all available uplink bandwidth
• Provides fast convergence in case of link or a device failure
• Provides link level resiliency
• Assures high availability
Prime Network supports vPC on Cisco Nexus 5000 series and Cisco Nexus 7000 series network
elements.
This topic contains the following sections:
• Viewing Virtual Port Channel Configuration, page 26-5
• Viewing vPC Configuration, page 26-7
vPC peer link
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Nexus 7000
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vPC
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vPC
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vPC domain
Peer-keepalive link