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What port/protocol does the MTS service use between active and standby VSMs?

dgoodridge
Level 1
Level 1

Hi,

As the title suggests really, I'm trying to find out what ports and/or protocols the redundancy services utilises when you have the active and standby VSMs on a network? On fixed configuration Nexus switches this is normally facilitated by EOBC, but I'm not sure how it works with the N1000v???

Many thanks,

Doug

3 Replies 3

mipetrin
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Cisco Nexus 1000v makes use of MTS and AIPC. You can review the following document which explains MTS:

"The message and transaction service (MTS) is a high-performance interprocess communications (IPC) message broker that specializes in high-availability semantics. MTS handles message routing and queuing between services on and across modules and between supervisors. MTS facilitates the exchange of messages such as event notification, synchronization, and message persistency between system services and system components. MTS can maintain persistent messages and logged messages in queues for access even after a service restart."

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus1000/sw/4_0/high_availibility/configuration/guide/n1000v_ha_cfg.pdf

In relation to AIPC, it is a proprietary low-level control protocol which is used for communication between the VSMs and VEMs, and also VSM to VSM. Please note that control messages are also encrypted.

Thanks,

Michael

Thanks for the reply Michael. I have read the document you mention however it isn't particularly detailled in relation to the actual mechanisms that are used.

You mention that AIPC is also used for VSM to VSM communications, could you point me to where that is documented please? Also, in L2 SVS mode will this communication slso be via the 'control' VLAN?

You touched on the subject of encryption. It is very important for me to understand the strength and method for this encryption due to the environment it will be used within. Do you have any further details on this at all?

Many thanks,

Doug

Hi Doug,

The document I provided has a diagram that illustrates that MTS/AIPC is used for VSM-VSM communication, which is about all that it has on AIPC.

You are correct in that the AIPC communication is via the 'control' VLAN.

In terms of any more detail on AIPC, this I cannot provide as that level of detail is restricted to the Cisco developers. As I mentioned, AIPC is proprietary and, even if I knew the exact details to how AIPC works, I would not be able to discuss them.

Thanks,
Michael

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