Spine Leaf Architecture without ACI

[ammartalal]

Can we implement Spine-Leaf architecture using Nexus N9K-93180YC-FX switches as both Spine and Leaf?

And is it possible to have the Spine-Leaf architecture without having ACI, with the switches working on NX-OS mode?

[f00z]

Spine leaf architecture can be implemented with any switch. 

You didn't specify whether it's layer2 spine leaf, layer3, or EVPN etc?

[ammartalal]

Well, we are trying to find the best possible and scalable design for a multisite deployment of VMWare Cloud Director. We are not sure which type would be scalable for any future expansions. Is it better to go with EVPN in this case?

As for the first part about the switches, thank your for the confirmation.

[M02@rt37 · Accepted solution]

Hello @ammartalal 

Yes, it is possible to implement Spine-Leaf architecture using Nexus N9K-93180YC-FX switches as both Spine and Leaf. These switches are designed to work in either spine or leaf roles, and can support up to 48 ports of 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) with a flexible mix of interface speeds. Additionally, the Nexus N9K-93180YC-FX switches provide advanced features such as Virtual Port Channel (vPC), Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), and Quality of Service (QoS), which are commonly used in Spine-Leaf architectures.

It is also possible to have a Spine-Leaf architecture without having ACI, with the switches working in NX-OS mode. The Spine-Leaf architecture is a networking topology that can be implemented using various network operating systems, including Cisco's NX-OS, which is the operating system that runs on the Nexus switches. While the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a popular solution for building Spine-Leaf architectures, it is not a requirement, and the architecture can be built using other technologies and software solutions.

Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (ex DCNM) could help you to implement you Fabric based on NX-OS.