written by Asterfuison
Leaf-spine network architecture is composed of a leaf layer and a spine layer. The leaf layer includes Layer 2 switches (leaf switches) for connecting servers and storage devices; the spine layer includes Layer 3 switches (spine switches) for routing and forwarding, which is the backbone of the network.
The traditional data center computing network consists of an access layer, an aggregation layer, and a core layer, with north-south traffic as the mainstay.Traditional network structures have supported various types of data centers for a long time. However, with the rapid growth of new applications and data volume, the scale of data centers keeps expanding, and the requirements for network architecture are also increasing. East-west traffic has gradually become the mainstream mode in data centers. Therefore, a new network topology architecture — Leaf-spine structure is born in data center. So what is a leaf-spine network architecture? What are its advantages? How to build hyper-scale leaf-spine architecture? This article will focus on everything you need to know about leaf-spine network architecture.
The figure shows the typical topology of the traditional three-layer network architecture:
Access Layer: Access switches are usually located on Top of the Rack, so they are also referred to as ToR (Top of Rack) switches, which physically connect to servers.
Aggregation layer: An aggregation switch connects to access switches under the same Layer 2 network (VLAN) and provides other services, such as firewall, SSL offload,and network analysis,etc. It can be a Layer 2 or Layer 3 switch.
Core Layer: The core switch provides high-speed forwarding of packets in and out of the data center, and provides connectivity for multiple Layer 2 local area networks (VLANs).The core switch provides a resilient Layer 3 network for the entire network.
As shown in the figure above, the leaf-spine network architecture is composed of a leaf layer and a spine layer. The leaf layer includes Layer 2 switches (leaf switches) for connecting servers and storage devices; the spine layer includes Layer 3 switches (spine switches) for routing and forwarding, which is the backbone of the network.
In the Spine-Leaf network, the network is simplified from the third level to the second level, and through the full-mesh connection built between the spine and leaf switches. It fully utilizing the very mature load sharing technology of the IP network (ie ECMP Routing, Equal- Cost Multi Path Routing), successfully resolved the problems that the three-level architecture cannot solve:
Here we take Asterfusion leaf-spine switches as an example to show how to build a leaf-spine architecture to build hyper-scale, cost-effective data centers. In this case, we will use Asterfusion CX308P-48Y-N as the leaf switch and CX532P-N as the spine switch.
With the rapid development of data-intensive services such as video, social networking and big data analysis, the flow of cloud data centers shows an exponential growth trend, which inevitably requires the deployment of tens of thousands of servers, and also puts forward the demand for large-scale construction of networks.
As shown in the picture below, Asterfusion’s cost-effective 1U box device alone can meet the needs of large-scale networking. Users no longer need to pay excessive costs for the expensive big chassis, and firmly control the initiative of network planning, deployment, optimization and expansion.
The application uses Asterfusion CX532P-N as Fabric layer and Spine layer, CX308P-48Y-N as Leaf layer, and uses three-layer CLOS architecture to build a super-large cloud data center network. All layers are interconnected by 100G, and 25G optical fibers are used to connect servers with 25G or 10G interfaces, enabling access to 24,576 servers.
The specific quantity and switching capacity are analyzed as follows:
It is very important to understand the leaf-spine network architecture because it has significant advantages over the traditional three-tier network architecture. For data center network administrators, deploying leaf-spine network architectures and purchasing cost-effective and high-performance data center switches are essential to meet existing business needs and future data center growth.
Asterfusion Networks is the leading provider of open networking infrastructure solutions. We provide an open, disaggregated, and highly programmable network fabric for next generation data centers and campus with white-box switching.
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