>> the L3 (IP) based vPC keepalive is purely intended to assist in dealing with
>> split-brain if the vPC peer-link is non-functional.
>> 
>> having simultaneous failure of both would be an unusual circumstance,
>> particularly if you follow best-practice on the vPC peer-link itself..
> 
> This is what I had understood as well.  Is there any documentation about the 
> information sent on the keepalive link?  Does the frequency remain the same, 
> regardless of traffic on the box?  Even at 400ms intervals, is it still going 
> to be a very small stream?

all the information contains is details on the vPC domains configured and their 
status.  no data-plane stuff.  the frames are quite small, <300 bytes if i 
recall, frequency is a fixed interval of between 400msec and 1second -- 
configurable.  yes its a small amount of data.

see 
<http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/4_1/nx-os/interfaces/configuration/guide/if_vPC.html#wp1385808>


as i said earlier, the vPC keepalive link is there purely to help ascertain if 
the vPC 'peer' is still alive in the event that all the vPC peer-link 
portchannel member links have failed.  its purpose is to prevent active-active 
in a split-brain manner.

the keepalive link is not mandatory - but certainly best practice would be for 
it to be operational as much as possible rather than having it on a network 
that didn't have the same availability as your primary data path.


cheers,

lincoln.
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