Your Browser is Out of Date

Nytro.ai uses technology that works best in other browsers.
For a full experience use one of the browsers below
Dell Enterprise SONiC Networking Use Case Guidebook
Overview Dell Enterprise SONiC Data Center Networking Deployments Dell Enterprise SONiC Edge Networking Deployment
Dell Enterprise SONiC Edge Networking Deployment
Edge deployment
Dell Enterprise SONiC solutions deployments (RoCE, VxRail, NVMe/TCP, PowerFlex) References

Edge deployment

Home > Networking Solutions > Enterprise/Data Center Networking Solutions > Enterprise SONiC Networking Solutions > Guides > Dell Enterprise SONiC Networking Use Case Guidebook > Edge deployment

Edge deployment

  • The edge continues to be the last connectivity portion of any enterprise. Traditionally the edge with its many use cases such as Internet of Things (IoT), automation, 5G, and retail has always created unique challenges.

    The edge requires unique features that makes it different from your typical data center deployment. At the edge the workloads require power, security, ease of deployment, automation, and services separation.

    The following figure shows a typical leaf and spine design with Dell PowerSwitch Edge platforms (E3248PXE and E3248P) connecting back to the data center and other external environments from the spine switches.

    Figure 14. Edge-retail deployment model
    Edge-retail deployment model

    The connections from the spine switches are all Layer 3 point-to-point connections.

    To achieve redundancy, multichassis link aggregation (MC-LAG) is deployed from the leaf to the spine switches.

    Spanning-tree "edge" port is configured on the leaf switches downstream ports. This allows end-devices to establish connectivity bypassing the spanning-tree blocking, listening, and learning phases before establishing connectivity .

    Several key software features are deployed to support this edge use case:

    • PoE, PoE+ for devices that require power such as IP phones, cameras, scanners, wireless access points (WAPs), and others
    • End-point security such as 802.1x to ensure trust connectivity into the network.
    • Voice, and video specific VLANS.
    • Basic Quality of Service (QoS) such as 802.1p Class of Service (CoS) to ensure proper prioritization of voice and video traffic.
    • Basic multicast such as IGMP Snooping
    • Device and link redundancy through multichassis link aggregation (MC-LAG)

    Deployment best practices

    Edge deployments have the following best practices:

    • Port security is critical, therefore having 802.1x deployed is important.
    • Layer 2 multicast such as IGMP Snooping should be deployed to keep multicast deployment simple. With IGMP Snooping, multicast trees are efficiently created throughout the infrastructure.
    • Power over Ethernet (PoE) is needed for end devices such as IP phones, cameras, wireless access points, or kiosks. There are two categories of PoE, it is best to deploy PoE+ which provides up to 30 W of power per port.
    • Assigning separate voice and video networks is recommended to keep priorities throughout the infrastructure.
    • Implement MC-LAG on the leaf switches to provide device link redundancy.
    • The minimum number of leaf interconnect links should be two.