Questions[cisco-nexus](server)

I have a cluster of 3 VMware ESXi6.0 hosts which are not licensed for VMware Distributed Switch. Currently, these hosts are configured with a static LAG between 2 ports on the server and a port each on a pair of Cisco Nexus 9372PX switches joined together with vPC. The servers connect via 10GbE over fibre.

My understanding of vPC is that it allows the switches to form aggregate links across multiple devices without the use of a stack. So, where I have configured a static LAG this seems to work fine.

My concern is that without a protocol such as LACP in place, should one of the Cisco switches go down, or should one of the server NICs fail, there is no way of renegotiating which ports can participate in the LAG so we would lose a theoretical 50% of traffic (based on Src/Dst IP Hash).

Is there a better way of configuring this link aggregation? On 10GbE, is there any merit in having an aggregated link (my gut feeling is no) and should I just let VMware "do it's thing" with regard to failover? What kind of configuration should I have in place on the switch?

I've done some research into this numerous times previously, and all roads seem to point to VMware Distributed Switch which, unfortunately, is prohibitively expensive for us.

I have been trolling Cisco sites and have not been able to find an answer to this questions.

Are you able to perform a write mem or likewise to save these configs on Nexus 5000 switches?

I inserted a SFP-GE-T (Gigabit RJ-45) transceiver in my Nexus 5548UP and I got "access down" "SFP Validation Failed" in show interface.

According to the Cisco Gigabit Ethernet Transceivers Compability Matrix the SFP-GE-T is compatible with the 5548UP.

How do I get past "SFP Validation Failed" on a SFP-GE-T transceiver on a Nexus 5548UP?

I have a dilemma. I want to have an end-to-end 10 Gigabit Ethernet network over SFP+, but my Dell servers have iDRAC6 which only works on 10/100BASE-T.

The closest thing I could find was the GLC-T transceiver but that only does 1000BASE-T and won't work with 100BASE-T from what I can tell.

How do I connect 100BASE-T (iDRAC6) hosts into a Nexus 2232PP via SFP+?

I'm looking to buy some CNAs to trial with, probably the Emulex board. Just wondering if anyone's using these cards or any competing cards and if so have you have any problems with them yet? In particular with stability, timeouts or high host CPU utilisation.

Oh this will be a mixed test of W2K8, RHEL 5U3 and ESX 3.5U4 via a Cisco Nexus 7K/5K.

Thanks in advance.