323
•
Automated underlay network provisioning.
•
Automated overlay network deployment.
Topology discovery
In a VCF fabric, each device uses LLDP to collect local topology information from directly-connected
peer devices. The local topology information includes connection interfaces, roles, MAC addresses,
and management interface addresses of the peer devices.
If multiple spine nodes exist in a VCF fabric, a master spine node is specified to collect the topology
for the entire network.
Automated underlay network provisioning
An underlay network is a physical Layer 3 network. An overlay network is a virtual network built on
top of the underlay network. The main stream overlay technology is VXLAN. For more information
about VXLAN, see
VXLAN Configuration Guide
.
Automated underlay network provisioning sets up a Layer 3 underlay network for users. It is
implemented by automatically executing configurations (such as Layer 3 reachability configurations)
in user-defined template files.
Provisioning prerequisites
Before you start automated underlay network provisioning, complete the following tasks:
1.
Finish the underlay network planning (such as IP address assignment, reliability design, and
routing deployment) based on user requirements.
In a data center network, the device obtains an IP address through a management Ethernet
interface after starting up without loading configuration.
In a campus network, the device obtains an IP address through VLAN-interface 1 after
starting up without loading configuration.
2.
Install and configure the Director server.
This step is required if you want to use the Director server to automatically create template files.
3.
Configure the DHCP server, the TFTP server, and the NTP server.
4.
Upload the template files to the TFTP server.
Template files for different roles in the VCF fabric are the basis of automatic provisioning. A
template file name ends in
.template
. The Director server automatically creates template files
for different device roles in the network topology. The following are available template types:
Template for a leaf node in a VLAN.
Template for a leaf node in a VXLAN with a centralized gateway.
Template for a leaf node in a VXLAN with distributed gateways.
Template for a spine node in a VLAN.
Template for a spine node in a VXLAN with a centralized gateway.
Template for a spine node in a VXLAN with distributed gateways.
Process of automated underlay network provisioning
The device finishes automated underlay network provisioning as follows:
1.
Starts up without loading configuration.
2.
Obtains an IP address, the IP address of the TFTP server, and a template file name from the
DHCP server.
3.
Downloads tag file
device_tag.csv
from the TFTP server and compares its SN code with the
SN code in the tag file.