Cisco Cisco Prime Virtual Network Analysis Module (vNAM) 6.3 White Paper

Service assurance is generally defined as the application of policies and processes to ensure that network 
services meet predefined service quality levels for optimal subscriber experiences. Service assurance 
enables SPs to control traffic flows, identify faults, and resolve issues in a timely manner to minimize 
service downtime. Service assurance also includes policies and processes to proactively diagnose and 
resolve service quality degradations or device malfunctions before subscribers are impacted.

In VMDC VSA 1.0, network service assurance encompasses the following concepts:

Network service assurance may be used in conjunction with storage service assurance to provide 
application-centric service differentiation. In this release we leverage the following storage service 
assurance functions:

Traffic engineering is a method of optimizing network performance by dynamically analyzing, 
predicting and regulating the behavior of transmitted data.

Port-channels are frequently deployed for redundancy and load sharing. Because the Nexus 1000V is an 
end-host switch, network administrators can use different approach than those used on physical 
switches, implementing a port-channel mechanism in one of the following modes:

Standard Port-Channel—The port-channel is configured on the Nexus 1000V and on upstream 
switches.

Special Port-Channel—The port-channel is configured only on the Nexus 1000V; there is no need 
to configure anything upstream. Two options are available: MAC pinning and vPC host mode.

Regardless of mode, port-channels are managed using standard port-channel CLI, but each mode 
behaves differently.

For more information on Nexus 1000V port-channel configurations, follow this link: