Cisco Nexus 7000 Series - Load Balancing; High Availability; Virtualization Support; Licensing Requirements for RIP

Send document comments to nexus7k-docfeedback@cisco.com.
12-4
Cisco Nexus 7000 Series NX-OS Unicast Routing Configuration Guide, Release 4.x
OL-20002-02
Chapter 12 Configuring RIP
Licensing Requirements for RIP
Load Balancing
You can use load balancing to allow a router to distribute traffic over all the router network ports that are
the same distance from the destination address. Load balancing increases the utilization of network
segments and increases effective network bandwidth.
Cisco NX-OS supports the Equal Cost Multiple Paths (ECMP) feature with up to 16 equal-cost paths in
the RIP route table and the unicast RIB. You can configure RIP to load balance traffic across some or all
of those paths.
High Availability
Cisco NX-OS supports stateless restarts for RIP. After a reboot or supervisor switchover, Cisco NX-OS
applies the running configuration and RIP immediately sends request packets to repopulate its routing
table.
Virtualization Support
Cisco NX-OS supports multiple instances of the RIP protocol that runs on the same system. RIP supports
Virtual Routing and Forwarding instances (VRFs). VRFs exist within virtual device contexts (VDCs).
You can configure up to four RIP instances on a VDC. By default, Cisco NX-OS places you in the default
VDC and default VRF unless you specifically configure another VDC and VRF. See the Cisco NX-OS
Virtual Device Context Configuration Guide and Chapter 14, “Configuring Layer 3 Virtualization.”
Licensing Requirements for RIP
The following table shows the licensing requirements for this feature:
Prerequisites for RIP
RIP has the following prerequisites:
• You must enable the RIP feature (see the “Enabling the RIP Feature” section on page 12-5).
• If you configure VDCs, install the Advanced Services license and enter the desired VDC (see to the
Cisco NX-OS Virtual Device Context Configuration Guide).
Configuration Guidelines and Limitations
RIP has the following configuration guidelines and limitations:
Product License Requirement
NX-OS RIP requires no license. Any feature not included in a license package is bundled with the Cisco NX-OS
system images and is provided at no extra charge to you. For a complete explanation of the NX-OS licensing
scheme, see the Cisco NX-OS Licensing Guide.