EXOS - Fabric Attach - what to map: NSI or ISID ?

[CMS_YArndt]

Hi community,

I wonder, does anyone know the difference between configuring a NSI or configuring a ISID on EXOS via “configure vlan VLAN add nsi xxxxx” / “configure vlan VLAN add isid xxxxx” ??

Is there even any difference? Or got the action just copied and renamed from nsi to isid for the ex-avaya specialists and customers?

I know by lab tests, that it hardly doesn’t matter what exactly I add in for a simple FA-implementation.

But I can’t find a proper answer to my question, neither within the doc collections nor the typical forums.

The closest thing I found is on the “emc” website, but that does not seem to fit onto EXOS.
Quote → “You can also select the NSI (Network Service Identifier) to extend the VLAN address space. The NSI is Extreme Management Center's implementation of a VXLAN, which increases the number of available VLANs.”

Thank you very much.

Greetings

Yannic

[CMS_YArndt]

Hi Stephane,

that’s a pretty neat explanation. Thank you for that very much! 
I also found in exos 30.3 on x440-g2 that the “add isid” configuration will be translated as “add nsi” in the config file of the switch.

It is not that a problem, that this is not an official statement by Extreme - but I do like your technical explanation for that.

Cheers

[Stephane_Grosj1 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I don’t know if I can speak in the name of Extreme, but the two keywords are just that: keywords. They produce the same result. The reason behind that, to simplify, is because you have multiple encapsulations available on EXOS, and some different nature of Fabric possible too. One will be using SPB (so Mac-in-Mac), and as such you need to provide an I-SID mapping to the BEB (FA Server). Another will be using VXLAN, for which you need to provide a VNI and in that case EXOS can be the FA Server (look at the BGP Auto-Peering feature in the User Guide for more information on that specific case if you are interested). But at the end of the day, this is the same 24-bit ID piece of information you are sending to a “more knowledgeable” switch (be it a BEB or a VTEP).

The goal was to simplify all of that and abstract the service ID name from the technology used, which also make a lot of sense in the perspective of XMC. That’s why there’s a NSI (Network Service Id) term. If tomorrow we use a different encapsulation, that wouldn’t matter in terms of concept/construct/CLI. But when you are used to manipulate I-SID, it can be confusing not to have that keyword too...

[CMS_YArndt]

Hi Stephane,

thank you very much for your answer. May I boldly enough ask you, if this is an answer “of Extreme Networks” as well?

Greetings
 

[Stephane_Grosj1]

This is the same, just a different naming convention.