FabricPath Topology without Spines

[alf]

Hello,

I´ve recognized the Spine+Leaf Design for FP as best-practices for large and scalable DC L2 fabrics.

However, for small DC environments it´s technically possible, that Leafs can be directly connected in almost every meshed topology using FP links to provide a DC L2 switching fabric without STP. So why using additional Spine switches which consume additional interswitch ports and don´t provide benefits with additional access ports ? If a scalability issue appears in future, Spines can be added later.

The "Leaf-only" FP Design is not widely documented (design guides, white papers etc.) so I ask myself, if there are other technical reasons to include those Spines in all of the FP designs ?

Any comment is highly appreciated.

regards,

Alfred

[paul driver]

Hello

My understanding is you cannot connect ACI leafs directly they need the fabric path of the spine switches to interconnect.

As far as I am aware I don’t think there is a Leaf only design as the ACI infrastructure doesnt supports it.

FYI - all my understanding is entirely based on theory - All due a a recent ACI course I attended so I could be wrong.


Lastly once this technology takes hold it will change networking forever! –it is defiantly the future

Res
Paul

[alf]

Hi Paul,
thx for your comment.

I am not talking about ACI. Even if in ACI also Spine/Leaf topologies are recommended as well, ACI and FabricPath are different technologies (and different hardware devices) and not co-existent.

[paul driver]

Hello

Arh well there you go jumping to conculsions again - Thats becasue I have ACI on the brain!

apologies

res

Paul