Appliance Port Must Be Configured with the Same VLAN as Uplink Ethernet Port or Port Channel
Foran appliance port to communicate with a disjoint L2 network, you must ensure that at least one uplink
Ethernetport or portchannel is inthe samenetwork and is thereforeassigned to the sameVLANs that are
usedby the appliance port. If Cisco UCS Manager cannot identify an uplink Ethernet port or port channel
thatincludes all VLANs that carry traffic for an appliance port, the appliance port experiences a pinning failure
andgoes down.
Forexample, a Cisco UCS domain includes a global VLAN named vlan500 with an ID of 500. vlan500 is
createdas a global VLAN on the uplink Ethernet port. However, Cisco UCS Manager does not propagate this
VLANto appliance ports. To configure an appliance port with vlan500, you must create another VLAN named
vlan500with an ID of 500 for the appliance port. Youcan create this duplicate VLAN in the Appliances
nodeon theLAN tab of the CiscoUCS Manager GUI or the eth-storagescope inthe CiscoUCS Manager
CLI.If you are prompted to check for VLAN Overlap, accept the overlap and Cisco UCS Manager creates
theduplicate VLAN for the appliance port.
Default VLAN 1 Cannot Be Configured Explicitly on an Uplink Ethernet Port or Port Channel
CiscoUCS Manager implicitly assigns default VLAN 1 to all uplink ports and port channels. Even if you do
notconfigure any otherVLANs, CiscoUCS uses default VLAN 1 to handle data trafficfor all uplink ports
andport channels.
Afteryou configure VLANs in a Cisco UCS domain, default VLAN 1 remains implicitly on all uplink
portsand port channels. You cannot explicitly assign default VLAN 1 to an uplink port or port channel,
norcan you removeit from an uplink port or port channel.
Note
Ifyou attemptto assign default VLAN 1 to a specific port or port channel, Cisco UCS Manager raises an
UpdateFailed fault.
Therefore,if you configurea Cisco UCS domainfor disjointL2 networks, do not configure any vNICs with
defaultVLAN 1 unlessyou wantall data traffic for that server to be carried on all uplink Ethernet ports and
portchannels and sentto allupstream networks.
Pinning Considerations for Upstream Disjoint L2 Networks
Communicationwith an upstream disjoint L2 network requires that you ensure that the pinning isproperly
configured.Whether you implement soft pinning or hard pinning, a VLAN membership mismatch causes
trafficfor one or more VLANs to be dropped.
Soft Pinning
Softpinning is the default behavior in Cisco UCS. If you plan to implement soft pinning, you do not need to
createLAN pin groups to specify a pin target for a vNIC. Instead, Cisco UCS Manager pins the vNIC to an
uplinkEthernet port or port channel according to VLAN membership criteria.
Withsoft pinning, Cisco UCS Manager validates data traffic from a vNIC against the VLAN membership of
alluplink Ethernet ports and port channels. If you have configured disjoint L2 networks, Cisco UCS Manager
mustbe able to find an uplink Ethernet port or port channel that is assigned to all VLANS on the vNIC. If no
uplinkEthernet port or port channel is configured with all VLANs on the vNIC, Cisco UCS Manager does
thefollowing:
• Brings the link down.
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Pinning Considerations for Upstream Disjoint L2 Networks