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Dell Networking Layer 3 Leaf-Spine Deployment and Best Practices with OS10 release 10.5.3.0.44
Introduction
Introduction
Typographical conventions
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Hardware overview Leaf-spine overview Protocols in the leaf-spine example Layer 3 configuration planning Layer 3 with Dell leaf and spine switches OSPF and eBGP Alternate use case scenario Demonstration Appendix A

Introduction

Home > Networking Solutions > Enterprise/Data Center Networking Solutions > SmartFabric OS10 Networking Solutions > Guides > Dell Networking Layer 3 Leaf-Spine Deployment and Best Practices with OS10 release 10.5.3.0.44 > Introduction

Introduction

  • Data center networks have traditionally been built in a three-layer hierarchical tree consisting of access, aggregation, and core layers, as shown in Figure 1.

     

    Figure 1.   Hierarchical networking model

    Figure 2.   Leaf-spine architecture

    Due to increasing east-west traffic within the data center (such as server-server or server-storage), an alternative to the traditional access-aggregation-core network model is becoming more popular. This architecture is known as a leaf-spine network and is a non-blocking network where all devices are the same number of hops away. 


    In a leaf-spine architecture, the access layer is the leaf layer. Servers and storage devices connect to leaf switches at this layer. At the next level, the aggregation and core layers collapse into a single spine layer. Each leaf switch connects to each spine switch to ensure that all leaf switches are no more than one hop away from one another. This reduces latency and the risk of bottlenecks in the network. 

    A leaf-spine architecture is highly scalable. A pair of leaf switches is added to each new rack as administrators add racks to the data center. Spine switches may be added as bandwidth requirements increase. If the initial spine layer is exhausted an additional layer can be deployed creating a 3-tier model. 

    The interconnections between leaf and spine are dynamically routed. This document provides step-by-step configuration examples using eBGP or OSPF for dynamic routing. It also includes examples using Dell networking switches at both the leaf and spine layers. This white paper is intended for network administrators or engineers to deploy a Layer 3 leaf-spine architecture using the examples provided.