CCNP Data Center flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

vPC peer-keepalive

Out-of-band heartbeat between vPC peers sent over the management VRF or a dedicated link on UDP 3200; it detects peer liveness when the peer-link fails.

vPC peer-link

802.1Q trunk port channel between two vPC peers that carries CFSoE control traffic and flooded data; it needs at least two member links with matching allowed VLANs.

vPC orphan port

A port that is not part of any vPC and connects a single-homed device; it stays forwarding during a peer-link failure, so orphan ports on both peers must not reach the same Layer 2 domain.

VXLAN VNI

24-bit segment identifier with roughly 16.7 million usable values; it is carried in the 8-byte VXLAN header and mapped to a VLAN on the local VTEP.

VTEP

VXLAN tunnel endpoint that encapsulates and decapsulates Layer 2 frames into UDP destination port 4789; each VTEP maps local VLANs to VNIs and learns remote MAC addresses.

EVPN route type 2

BGP EVPN MAC/IP advertisement route that distributes host MAC and IP bindings between VTEPs, enabling ARP and ND suppression along with symmetric IRB forwarding.

Fabric Extender (FEX)

Nexus 2000-series device that extends parent switch ports to the top of rack; it performs no local switching and forwards all host traffic to the parent over fabric ports.

Service profile

XML object in UCS Manager that defines server identity and connectivity: vNICs, vHBAs, boot and BIOS policies, firmware policy, and pool-derived MAC, WWN and UUID values.

UCS MAC pool

A named range of MAC addresses from which service profiles assign addresses to vNICs, so a server keeps the same identity when moved to another blade.

Fabric interconnect cluster

Two UCS fabric interconnects of the same model managed by a single UCS Manager in active/standby mode; they interconnect and present one unified management domain.

Fabric failover

vNIC setting that sends traffic through the peer fabric interconnect when the primary path fails, keeping the server reachable without re-cabling.

UCS 5108 chassis

Blade chassis with eight half-width blade slots, two IOM slots, four power supplies and eight fans; IOMs uplink to the fabric interconnects over 10/40G links.

Boot policy

Ordered list of boot targets in a UCS service profile, such as local disk, SAN LUN, LAN PXE or virtual media, used when the server starts up.

FC ID format

24-bit address made of an 8-bit domain, 8-bit area and 8-bit port field; the domain identifies the switch and must be unique within the fabric.

FLOGI

Fabric login process in which an N port sends a FLOGI to the attached F port and receives a 24-bit FC ID plus a buffer-to-buffer credit allocation.

NPIV

N port ID virtualization lets one physical F port register multiple FC IDs, up to 255 per port on Cisco switches, giving each virtual machine its own WWPN.

NPV mode

N port virtualization: the switch acts as an NPIV proxy with F ports toward hosts and NP uplinks to the core, taking no domain ID and running no fabric services.

VSAN

Logically isolated Fibre Channel fabric inside a physical switch; name server, zoning and domain ID are per-VSAN, and each interface belongs to one VSAN.

Hard zoning

Zoning enforced in switch hardware through FC ID based access control, so frames are dropped even when a device bypasses the name server.

FCoE Ethertype

FCoE data frames use Ethertype 0x8906 and FIP frames use 0x8914; both require a lossless Ethernet class with PFC and ETS configured end to end.

NX-API

HTTP/HTTPS interface on Nexus switches enabled with the feature nxapi command that accepts JSON or XML requests and returns structured command output on ports 80 and 443.

POAP

PowerOn Auto Provisioning: a switch with no startup configuration gets an address by DHCP, downloads a script and image, and applies configuration automatically.

APIC REST API

HTTPS JSON interface to the Cisco APIC; clients authenticate with aaaLogin to obtain a token, then address objects by distinguished names such as uni/tn-tenant.

nxos_config module

Ansible module that pushes configuration lines or full configuration files to Nexus devices idempotently, using the network_cli or httpapi connection plugin.

gRPC telemetry

Model-driven streaming telemetry in which the switch pushes data for subscribed YANG sensor paths to a collector over gRPC, encoded as GPB or JSON.

DCNM REST API

Cisco Data Center Network Manager REST endpoints for fabric discovery, configuration deployment and image management; responses are returned in JSON or XML.

TACACS+

AAA protocol over TCP 49 that encrypts the entire packet body and separates authentication, authorization and accounting, supporting per-command authorization with AV pairs.

RADIUS

AAA protocol using UDP 1812 and 1813 that encrypts only the password inside the access request and provides no per-command authorization.

DHCP snooping

Feature that marks ports trusted or untrusted and builds a binding table of MAC, IP, VLAN and port; untrusted ports cannot offer DHCP addresses.

Dynamic ARP Inspection

Validates ARP packets against the DHCP snooping binding table and drops mismatches received on untrusted ports, blocking ARP spoofing inside the VLAN.

CoPP

Control Plane Policing: a policy-map attached to the control plane that classifies and rate-limits traffic punted to the supervisor, protecting the CPU from floods.

MACsec

IEEE 802.1AE encryption applied per hop at line rate; MACsec Key Agreement negotiates session keys from a pre-shared connectivity association key.