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A vPC provides the following benefits:
• Allows a single device to use an EtherChannel across two upstream devices
• Eliminates Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) blocked ports
• Provides a loop-free topology
• Uses all available uplink bandwidth
• Provides fast convergence if either the link or a switch fails
• Provides link-level resiliency
• Assures high availability
Terminology
vPC Terminology
The terminology used in vPCs is as follows:
• vPC—The combined EtherChannel between the vPC peer devices and the downstream device.
• vPC peer device—One of a pair of devices that are connected with the special EtherChannel known as
the vPC peer link.
• vPC peer link—The link used to synchronize states between the vPC peer devices.
• vPC member port—Interfaces that belong to the vPCs.
• Host vPC port—Fabric Extender host interfaces that belong to a vPC.
• vPC domain—This domain includes both vPC peer devices, the vPC peer-keepalive link, and all of the
port channels in the vPC connected to the downstream devices. It is also associated to the configuration
mode that you must use to assign vPC global parameters. The vPC domain ID must be the same on both
switches.
• vPC peer-keepalive link—The peer-keepalive link monitors the vitality of a vPC peer Cisco Nexus
device. The peer-keepalive link sends configurable, periodic keepalive messages between vPC peer
devices.
No data or synchronization traffic moves over the vPC peer-keepalive link; the only traffic on this link
is a message that indicates that the originating switch is operating and running vPCs.
Fabric Extender Terminology
The terminology used for the Cisco Nexus Fabric Extender is as follows:
• Fabric interface—A 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplink port designated for connection from the Fabric Extender
to its parent switch. A fabric interface cannot be used for any other purpose. It must be directly connected
to the parent switch.
• EtherChannel fabric interface—An EtherChannel uplink connection from the Fabric Extender to its
parent switch. This connection consists of fabric interfaces bundled into a single logical channel.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series NX-OS Interfaces Configuration Guide, Release 5.2(1)N1(1)
78-26881-OL 67
Configuring Virtual Port Channels
Terminology