Nexus FabricPath - Spine Leaf

[alexng]

Is the Leaf layer needed when designing a fabricpath topology?

The idea is to have a string of 3x N7Ks (Spine) doing FabricPath and uplink 6509s and Arista switches to the N7Ks..is this possible or the "Leaf Layer"

needs to be there?

Thanks

[Lei Tian]

Hi,

It will be leaf if it connects to something not fabric path. So your switch/VDC connect to Arista or 6k are leaf switches.

HTH,
Lei Tian

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[alexng]

Would the attached diagram be a valid FP deployment between datacenters?  If I understand you correctly, anything that is CE connecting to a Nexus configured for FP becomes a "Leaf"?  So the Spine and Leaf topology isn't really a requirement?

Thanks

[Lei Tian]

Hi,

Any topology is valid for fabric path:) I don't think there is hard requirement for spine and leaf in FP deployment. In your case, use FP as DCI solution. Just need to understand there is no FHRP localization in FP.

HTH,
Lei Tian

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[alexng]

Thanks for your reply.

What are the DCI connectivity requirements for FP..are there any? Dark fiber?

[canero]

Hi Alex,

For DCI Connectivity, you need a L1 link as darkfiber.  Fabricpath is not recommended for long distances, only same campus DCI because it has a distance limitation of about 800m., but being tested over longer distances, which makes it available as an IntraCampus solution.  Also extensive use of multicast is not recommended when Fabricpath is used as a DCI Technology.

If you need to have Vlan Extension technologies you may use OTV, or an overlay network such as VXLAN so that you may use the same IP addresses on both sides over a L3 network without extending the Vlans.

But for the current documentation VMDC 3.0 Design Guide, it is mentioned that this distance is about to increase but not currently documented with the following quote"

Previous design guidance for DCI components remains the same. Use of FabricPath for long distance multi-site DCI is not covered in VMDC 3.0, however this release does address shorter distance, inter-building resilience in a campus environment."

which makes me think upcoming VMDC will have new information. If someone has more information would be glad of new distance boundary for fabricpath.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/VMDC/3.0/DG/VMDC3_DG1.html