Benefits of an OOB Management Network

BC.

An out-of-band (OOB) management network is a separate network infrastructure that is used to manage and monitor the data center devices, such as switches, routers, and servers, without interfering with the production traffic. This management network provides several benefits, including increased security, improved network performance, and simplified troubleshooting. In the context of Cisco Nexus data center infrastructure, deploying an OOB management network provides the following two features:

A. Layer 3 path for monitoring purposes: The OOB management network can provide a Layer 3 path between the management station and the Nexus switches, which enables network administrators to remotely manage and monitor the switches using protocols such as Telnet, SSH, SNMP, and Syslog. By separating the management traffic from the production traffic, the OOB network can ensure that the management traffic does not compete with the critical application traffic for bandwidth or processing resources.

D. Layer 3 path for vPC keepalive packets: Virtual PortChannel (vPC) is a technology that enables a Nexus switch to form a single logical switch with two upstream switches or routers, which provides redundancy and load balancing for the server traffic. To ensure the reliability of the vPC connection, the two Nexus switches exchange keepalive packets over a dedicated link. By deploying an OOB management network, the keepalive packets can be sent over a Layer 3 path that is separate from the production traffic, which can improve the reliability and scalability of the vPC configuration.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Layer 2 path for server traffic: The OOB management network is not designed to handle the production traffic, including the server traffic, which should be carried over the data network.

C. Layer 2 path for a vPC peer link: The vPC peer link is a Layer 2 trunk that carries the control traffic between the Nexus switches in a vPC configuration. The peer link should not be carried over the OOB management network because it may introduce latency, jitter, and security risks.

E. Layer 3 path for server traffic: The OOB management network is not optimized for handling the server traffic, which should be carried over the data network that provides the necessary bandwidth, QoS, and routing capabilities.