With vPCs both switches are managed independently – Cisco CCNP and CCIE

It is important to remember that with vPCs both switches are managed independently. Keep in mind that you need to create and permit VLANs on both Nexus switches.
A vPC system consists of the following components:

vPC domain: The domain includes the vPC peers, keepalive links, and port channels that use the vPC technology.
vPC peer switch: This is the other switch within the vPC domain. Each switch is connected via the vPC peer link. It’s also worth noting that one device is selected as primary and the other as secondary.
vPC peer-keepalive or fault-tolerant link: A routed “link” (it is more accurate to say path) used to resolve dual-active scenarios in which the peer link connectivity is lost. This link is referred to as a vPC peer-keepalive or fault-tolerant link. The peer-keepalive traffic is often transported over the management network through the management port. The peer-keepalive traffic is typically routed over a dedicated virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instance (which could be the management VRF, for example). The keepalive can be carried over a routed infrastructure; it does not need to be a direct point-to-point link, and, in fact, it is desirable to carry the peer-keepalive traffic on a different network instead of on a straight point-to-point link.


vPC peer link: The most important connectivity element in the vPC system. This link is used to create the illusion of a single control plane by forwarding BPDUs or LACP packets to the primary vPC switch from the secondary vPC switch. The peer link is used to synchronize MAC addresses between aggregation groups 1 and 2 and to synchronize Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) entries for the purpose of IGMP snooping. It provides the necessary transport for multicast traffic and for the communication of orphaned ports. In the case of a vPC device that is also a Layer 3 switch, the peer link also carries Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) frames. For a vPC to forward a VLAN, that VLAN must exist on the peer link and on both vPC peers, and it must appear in the allowed list of the switch port trunk for the vPC itself. If either of these conditions is not met, the VLAN is not displayed when you enter the show vpc brief command, nor is it a vPC VLAN. When a port channel is defined as a vPC peer link, Bridge Assurance is automatically configured on the peer link.


vPC member port: A port that is assigned to a vPC channel group. The ports that form the virtual port channel are split between the vPC peers and are referred to as vPC member ports.

Non-vPC port: The ports connecting devices in a non-vPC mode to a vPC topology are referred to as orphaned ports. The device connects to the Cisco Nexus switch with a regular spanning tree configuration: thus, one link is forwarding and one link is blocking. These links connect to the Cisco Nexus switch with orphaned ports.