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Hyper-V Extensible Switch - Cisco Nexus 1000V White Paper
Hyper-V Extensible Switch - Cisco Nexus 1000V White Paper
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Table of contents
Copyright information ...................................................................... 3
Introduction .......................................................................................... 4
Working Together: Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches.......... 4
Conclusion .......................................................................................... 15
For More Information...................................................................... 15
List of charts, tables, and figures ................................................ 16
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Copyright information
2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided "as-is." Information and
views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change
without notice. You bear the risk of using it. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to
any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal,
reference purposes. You may modify this document for your internal, reference purposes.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Introduction
The growth of virtualization technologies in
enterprises and data centers is one of todays key IT
trends. IT professionals are looking more and more
to virtualization to help control costs, create greater
efficiencies in meeting business demands, and
innovate with solutions such as private clouds.
Cisco UCS VM-FEX: Delivers near baremetal performance for virtualized workloads
In developing the Hyper-V Extensible Switch,
and a streamlined management model
Microsoft worked closely with Cisco Systems, the
world leader in networking technology. The Cisco
Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) Virtual Machine Fabric
Extender (VM-FEX) have been widely adopted by enterprises to deliver advanced networking features for
their virtual environments.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Now, Microsoft and Cisco are providing enterprises and data centers with the combined power of the
Hyper-V Extensible Switch and the Cisco networking technology to deliver advanced networking features
to virtual environments running on Windows Server 2012. Customers using Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V
can choose the Cisco solution that best suits their needs: either the software-based Nexus 1000V Series
Switches, or the hardware-based UCS VM-FEX solution, which offers simplified management and near
bare-metal input/output (I/O) performance.
This paper provides an overview of the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and the Cisco
technologies. It provides a general discussion of the key benefits for customers in using these
technologies together, including the ease of adding extensions, migrating switches and virtual machines,
and working in a unified management environment. It also provides at-a-glance descriptions of common
scenarios.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Traffic Shaping
Quality of Service (QoS). QoS is used to set minimum and maximum bandwidth levels by using
absolute or relative amounts. QoS can be used to guarantee minimum levels of bandwidth to
customers to meet service level agreements, and also to minimize or prevent excessive usage by
specific clients.
Security
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) guard. This is used to control whether or not a virtual
machine is allowed to behave as a DHCP server, which can help prevent network attacks involving the
deliberate misuse of addresses.
IP security (IPsec) task offloads. This enables virtual machines to offload IPsec encryption directly to the
IPsec offload engine on a network adapter.
Performance Enhancements
Dynamic virtual machine queues (VMQs). Windows Server 2012 provides support for dynamic VMQs,
which adjust the number of cores used by the host virtual switch base on traffic load.
Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV). SR-IOV accelerates performance by letting network traffic go
directly to a virtual machine.
Diagnostics
Port mirroring. This provides the ability to copy traffic from multiple virtual machines to multiple port
switches, which can help in identifying network issues.
Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). ETW helps IT managers to easily diagnose issues with a switch and
related extensions without having to use a debugger.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
Microsoft is the first vendor to truly address this issue with the new Hyper-V Extensible Switch, which
comes with an open platform that has easily accessible APIs and an efficient path for adding new
functions to the switch. Today, the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch is the only virtual
switch on the market that is extensible instead of being only replaceable. With the Hyper-V Extensible
Switch, ISVs and enterprise developers creating virtual appliances and functionality can create their
extensions and simply plug them into the existing switch.
Several key aspects of the Hyper-V Extensible Switch set it apart from the competition and deliver more
benefits to enterprise IT professionals and ISVs:
Open, accessible platform with a public API. The Hyper-V Extensible Switch provides an open
platform that uses a public API that is readily available for download from the Microsoft Developer
Network (MSDN) website. For developers, this opens the door to new solutions that deliver just the
functionality that they want to create. For IT departments, the flexibility and simplicity provided by the
open platform and API mean smaller, more streamlined extensions for virtual switches, smaller
footprints, and fewer issues that need attention in the long term.
Easy development with existing API model. Extensions are coded by using either WFP or NDISthe
same programming model that has been available for more than a decade for creating networking
filters and drivers. For developers, this means they can begin working immediately without being
forced to learn a new development environment.
First-class citizens of the system. Hyper-V Extensible Switch extensions receive the same levels of
support and service as the switch itself. IT professionals benefit from this because functions and
activities, such as offloads and live migrationsand the related migration of configuration settings
simply work, with no additional effort.
Quality extensions with Windows logo certification. Extensions built in this framework are backed
by the Windows Hardware Certification program and associated tools to test and certify the end
products. This results in fewer bugs, better overall performance, and higher customer satisfaction.
Simpler diagnostics with unified tracing. With Unified Tracing support in the Hyper-V Extensible
Switch, ISVs and developers can spend less time diagnosing issues, which increases productivity while
cutting support costs. For IT professionals, it also leads to shorter down times.
where a fabric administrator can define what extensions are used and the port profiles that are available
for those extensions. Virtual Machine Manager uses this feature to distribute extensions to hosts as
needed and to ensure that ports are configured uniformly, which helps to provide consistent virtual
machine behavior across the data center.
Organizations can benefit from this integration of Virtual Machine Manager through:
Automated importing of network settings from a virtual switch extension manager, which helps reduce
errors related to improper configurations.
Simplified management of network capabilities across all hosts in a single object.
The ability to create network capabilities as needed by the virtual machines, rather than providing all
virtual machines with equal access to those capabilities.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
The VSM is a virtual machine that provides functionality similar to that of a supervisor module in a
physical modular switch. It controls multiple VEMs and provides a single point of management and
monitoring for the distributed virtual switch. All the switching and virtual machine networking
configuration is performed through VSM, and VSM automatically propagates the relevant data to the
participating VEMs.
In addition to these two components, Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches include Cisco vPath technology,
which extends multiple network services to Hyper-V environments.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
10
Reducing Complexity,
Increasing Benefits in
Virtual Networks
Cisco virtual networking solutions reduce the
complexities associated with virtual machineto-virtual machine networking, helping IT
professionals realize more of the benefits of
server virtualization technology. With Cisco
Nexus 1000V Series Switches and the VM-FEX
technology, organizations can preserve their
existing investments in network operation
models and management tools. Network
administrators can use Cisco NX-OS features
to manage network policies across both
physical and virtual environments, which
helps minimize the need for retraining. The
solutions offer high visibility into virtual
machine traffic, which streamlines
troubleshooting tasks. And virtualizationaware networking features simplify virtual
machine network policy management while
providing better security through the
extension of enterprise network policies to
the virtual network.
Cisco virtual solutions operating in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments provide organizations
with advanced technologies for optimizing the functionality of their cloud deployments.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
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Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
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Figure 2: The Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches architecture used with Windows Server
2012 Hyper-V
This combination lets organizations take advantage of the Cisco virtual networking services that are part
1
of the Nexus 1000V Series. They include:
Cisco Virtual Security Gateway for providing detailed, zone-based policies for multitenant
environments.
Cisco ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall, which provides multi-tenant edge security, default gateway
functionality, and protection against network-based attacks.
Cisco Virtual Wide Area Application Services (vWAAS), which ensure application performance
acceleration to users connected to enterprise data centers and enterprise private clouds.
Cisco Network Analysis Module (NAM), which provides visibility to troubleshoot performance
problems in virtual environments.
Organizations needing a dedicated hardware appliance to host all of their virtual appliances Nexus 1000V
from Series Switches, such as vWAAS and NAM, can use the Cisco Nexus 1010 Virtual Services Appliance.
With the Nexus 1010 Virtual Services Appliance, network administrators do not need to rely on server
administrators to run networking appliances.
Cisco will provide more information about the availability of these services closer the general availability
of the Nexus 1000V.
1
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
13
Extending a Physical
Network to Hyper-V
Virtual Machines with the
Cisco VM-FEX
Organizations that want near bare-metal
performance for virtualized workloads running
with Hyper-V can turn to the Cisco UCS VM-FEX
solution. VM-FEX builds on the network fabric
extender technology developed by Cisco. Fabric
extender technology helps organizations achieve
the benefits of simplified management of
chassis-based modular switches and the
convenience of top-of-rack deployment. VM-FEX
brings these developments to virtual machines.
By using VM-FEX in Windows Server 2012
Hyper-V environments, organizations achieve
operational simplicity by being able to collapse
the physical and virtual networking layers into
one, which reduces the number of management
points that have to be monitored. It also delivers
the same consistent feature set and
infrastructure for both physical and virtual
environments. Using VM-FEX with Hyper-V also
provides improved performance through the SRIOV functionality discussed earlier in this paper.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
14
Conclusion
Some of the biggest IT innovations today are being driven by the demand for new and enhanced
virtualization technologies to provide greater flexibility, scalability, and cost savings for enterprise
organizations and data centers. To realize the full potential of virtualization without suffering from
excessive cost and resource demands, IT professionals need solutions that can streamline the deployment
and management of virtualized networks.
The alliance between Microsoft and Cisco provides virtual networking solutions that fill this need. With the
capabilities provided by Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch, Cisco virtual networking
solutions, and the optional deployment of the Virtual Machine Manager component of Microsoft System
Center 2012, organizations can take full advantage of virtualization-aware networking features, simplify
their operations through this tight integration, and benefit from an operational model that streamlines IT
management for virtual and physical networks. This reduces complexity while helping reduce timeconsuming tasks for IT administrators. It also provides businesses with new possibilities for getting the
most out of their IT investments to make business operations more efficient.
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
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Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch and Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches
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