Configure Networks and VRFs with NDFC

Welcome. In this video, you will learn how to configure networks and VRFs with NexSys dashboard fabric controller. You will begin with create and attach networks and VRFs using the fabric controller and then deploy the configuration to the switches. So let's get it started. Your company is deploying a new data center using Nexus nine k switches. It's required to provide layer two connectivity between the WIP endpoints and layer three connectivity between the web and the app endpoints. Nexus dashboard fabric controller will be used to provision the network infrastructure. You as a network administrator has been tasked to use the Nexus dashboard fabric controller to configure the network. You will review the existing fabric deployment, then you will create a VRF. Under the VRF, you will create two networks, one for the web endpoints and the other for the application endpoints. Then you will attach the networks to interfaces and switches, and finally, you will recalculate, preview, and deploy the configuration. You are now on the Nexus dashboard fabric controller interface. In this scenario, we already have a pre provisioned VXLAN fabric. To check the current fabric, navigate to topology and click on the previously created fabric. Notice we have two leaves and two spines interconnected. You will start by creating a VRF, which is a layer three domain that will contain your networks. While you are under the topology, from the actions drop down menu, select detailed view to provision the fabric settings. To create a VRF, go to the VRFs tab. And from the actions drop down menu, select create. The NDFCs specifies a VRF name automatically. Let's change it to provide the descriptive name for your VRF. Let's call it tenant one. Also, the fabric controllers provide an identifier for your VRF. You need to make sure that each VRF will have a unique identifier. Let's leave it to the default. Also, the fabric controller is leveraging a built in universal template to provision the VRF settings. You also have a VRF extension template that allow you to extend this network to another fabric. We will leave these templates to their default settings. At the bottom of the page, you also have general and advanced parameters to tweak the VRF config as per your design. For now, we will leave it to the default settings. Once you're done, click create the VRF. Next, you will create networks. Networks act as a layer two domain in your infrastructure. You will create two VLAN networks, one for web endpoints and the other will be for the application endpoints. To do that, navigate to networks tab and from the actions drop down menu, select create. Once again, the fabric controller automatically populate the network name. Let's change it to provide the descriptive name. Let's call it web tenant one. Select the VRF that this network will belong to. Let's select the previously created VRF, which is tenant one, and enter the VLAN ID as per your topology. The NDFC can propose a random VLAN number if needed. In our case, we want to specify it manually. The web VLAN will be VLAN hundred. Once again, the fabric controller is leveraging built in template to configure networks on your leaf switches. Leave them to the default. Finally, provide an IP version for gateway for your network. This will specify the gateway IP address for transporting the layer three traffic. The Anycast gateway IP address will be the same for all the switches of the fabric. There are more settings that you can tweak as per your needs. Once you are done, click on create. Repeat the same process to create other networks as per your design. In our case, we will need to add another network for the application endpoints. After you are done with creating networks and VRF, it's time to start using them. You do that by attaching the networks to certain interfaces on your fabric switches. To do that, close the detailed view to go back again to the topology page. Click on the networks. You should see the two networks that we have created. Select the web tenant one, and right click the device you want to attach this network to and choose edit attachment. You can see the network is detached by default. Enable the attach button and choose the interface where this network should be enabled. In our case, we have a web endpoint connected to Ethernet one three on leaf one. Then click on save. Repeat the same process to attach more networks to more devices as per your design. I will attach the web network to Ethernet one four on leaf two, which is connected to the web two endpoint. Then click on save. And finally, we need to attach the application network to the application endpoint on Ethernet one three on leaf two. To do that, go back to the networks by clicking on the networks button. Go to the second network, is application ten and one. Right click leaf two, edit the attachment, and enable it in the correct interface. Once you're done, click on save. At that point, your configuration is completed. It's time to recalculate the config. This will help the fabric controller to generate a new configuration that will be provisioned based on the changes you did. Go back to the fabric topology, then from the actions drop down menu, select recalculate config. The deploy configuration page will be presented. You can click on the pending config to review what will be pushed to the switches. Notice that a VRF named tenant one will be created. Also, an Anycast SVI will be created for each network. And finally, the VLAN networks will be enabled under the interfaces you specified. Once you are done reviewing the config, click on close, then select deploy to start the provisioning process. Finally, to verify the provisioning is successful, you can test the layer two and layer three reachability between the endpoints. Let's first verify the layer two connectivity between web one and web two. As you can see, there is a layer two communication and it is working correctly. Now let's verify the layer three connectivity between WEP one and application. And as you can see, layer three reachability exists on the fabric. This concludes our Cisco technical education video on configuring networks and VRFs with NDFC. Thank you for watching.