Create a Backplane Network

Backplane traffic is intra-cluster traffic that is necessary for the cluster to function, and comprises traffic between CVMs, traffic between CVMs and hosts, storage traffic, and so on. (For nodes that have RDMA-enabled NICs, the CVMs use a separate RDMA LAN for Stargate-to-Stargate communications.)

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Define and differentiate AHV Bond Modes

Active-backup The Active-Backup bond mode is the simplest, easily allowing connections to multiple upstream switches without any additional switch configuration. The downside is that traffic from all VMs use only the single active link within the bond. All backup links remain unused. In a system with dual 10 gigabit Ethernet adapters, the maximum throughput of…

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Explain IP Address Management (IPAM)

An unmanaged network does not perform IPAM functions and gives VMs direct access to an external Ethernet network. Therefore, the procedure for configuring the PXE environment for AHV VMs is the same as for a physical machine or a VM that is running on any other hypervisor. VMs obtain boot file information from the DHCP…

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Identify the default AHV network configuration

The default AHV configuration includes an OVS bridge called br0 and a native Linux bridge called virbr0. The virbr0 Linux bridge carries management and storage communication between the CVM and AHV host. All other storage, host, and VM network traffic flows through the br0 OVS bridge. The AHV host, VMs, and physical interfaces use ports…

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Explain how to separate 1GbE and 10GbE interfaces

To avoid running any traffic on the 1 Gbps NICs there are two simple commands available which will remove all the 1 Gbps NICs from the bond. nutanix@cvm$ allssh manage_ovs –interfaces 10g update_uplinks Replace interfaces with one of the following values: A comma-separated list of the interfaces that you want to include in the bond….

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Explain and implement network segmentation

Unsegmented Network In the default, unsegmented network in a Nutanix cluster, the Controller VM has two virtual network interfaces—eth0 and eth1. Interface eth0 is connected to the built-in external virtual switch, which is in turn connected to the external network through a bond or NIC team that contains the host’s physical uplinks. Interface eth1 is…

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Describe AHV networking components and configuration settings

No backplane for internode communication All I/O’s handled by hypervisor on private network I/O is forwarded from hypervisor to CVM CVM replicates with other nodes with external IP over public 10GB network Read requests are served locally Typically, the only traffic on the 10G public is replication Occasionally CVM will forward requests in event CVM…

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Differentiate AHV managed and unmanaged networks

A virtual network can have an IPv4 configuration, but it is not required. A virtual network with an IPv4 configuration is a managed network; one without an IPv4 configuration is an unmanaged network. A VLAN can have at most one managed network defined. If a virtual network is managed, every NIC must be assigned an IPv4 address…

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