FabricPath Review

3 Tier Design Issues

» Access layer is a single points of failure
• Typically for both links and nodes
» Layer 2 multipath isn’t supported
• Result is wasted links and link bandwidth
» Scaling CE is a function of the MAC table
• All switches must learn all MACs
• Access layer switches typically have small TCAM
• I.e. Catalyst 2960 can hold only 8000 MAC addresses
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Improving on the 3-Tier Design
» What technologies can we implement to eliminate
some of these problems?
• vPC
• FabricPath
• VxLAN?
• OTV?
• LISP?
• ACI?
» Which aspects of the problems do these solutions
address?
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Solving Access Layer Problems
» vPC helps to solve access layer problems
• Adds link & node level redundancy
• Allows for Active / Active forwarding

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Solving Distribution Layer Problems
» Scaling Up Aggregation platforms is still an issue
• Boxes have finite ports
» vPC doesn’t support Scale Out
• vPCs must be built in pairs, results in STP Active / Standby
» MAC scaling in the Access & Aggregation layer is
still an issue
• All switches within the broadcast domain must learn all MAC
addresses
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Scaling Out with CLOS Fabric
» Clos network
• “In the field of telecommunications, a Clos network is a kind
of multistage circuit switching network, first formalized by
Charles Clos in 1952,[1] which represents a theoretical
idealization of practical multi-stage telephone switching
systems. Clos networks are required when the physical circuit
switching needs to exceed the capacity of the largest feasible
single crossbar switch.”

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 FabricPath & CLOS Networks
» FabricPath is a type of CLOS topology
• All leafs connect to all spines
• Traffic flows are ECMP as Leaf > Spine > Leaf
• Scale out is supported by adding more spines

» Access layer multipathing solved with vPC +

FabricPath
• i.e. “vPC+”

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 FabricPath Control Plane Review
» IS-IS used in the FabricPath core for Layer 2 Routing
» Goal is to compute SPT between all FabricPath nodes
• IS-IS is not used for MAC address advertisements in FP
» Advantages of IS-IS are…
• Uses its own layer 3 transport
• i.e. IP is not required
• Natively extensible
• i.e. supports new TLVs
• Natively supports ECMP
• Means layer 2 load balancing without STP, Port Channels, or vPC

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 FabricPath Switch ID
» Identifies the node in the IS-IS SPT
» By default automatically generated
» For verification and troubleshooting
recommended to manually assign
• fabricpath switch-id
• show fabricpath switch-id

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 FabricPath Data Plane
» CE Frames are encapsulated with new FabricPath
header
• FabricPath is not Ethernet
• This is why hardware support is limited
• FabricPath is not TRILL
• Similar logic but not interoperable
» FP has the SRC and DST FP Switch ID’s in the
header
• Traffic is L2 Routed via the SPT to DST Switch ID
• Same exact logic as L3 IS-IS or OSPF routing

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FabricPath Header Format

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 FabricPath MAC Learning
» “Traditional” MAC Learning
• Learn SRC MAC of all received traffic
• Flood traffic to elicit response from DST
• Learn SRC MAC of DST from its response
» “Conversational” MAC Learning
• Only learn SRC MAC if you already know DST MAC
• Optimization of the control plane but not of the data plane
• Default mode for FabricPath VLANs
• Can be enabled for CE VLANs

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 FabricPath and STP Interaction
» FabricPath Leaf Switches must be STP Root for
Classical Ethernet domain
• Ports become Root Inconsistent via RootGuard otherwise
» Leaf switches should have same priority and
lowest priority (e.g. 4096)

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 FabricPath Configuration
» Very few commands necessary
» Enable FabricPath
• install feature-set fabricpath
• feature-set fabricpath
» Configure FabricPath VLANs
• mode fabricpath under VLAN
» Configure FabricPath Core Ports
• switchport mode fabricpath

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 FabricPath and vPC+
» Each FabricPath Switch has its own ID
• Node ID in the IS-IS SPT
» vPC Peers would normally have 2 Switch IDs
• Means they appear as separate Leafs of the SPT
» vPC+ allows FabricPath and vPC to work together
• vPC Peers share a FabricPath Switch ID
• Looks like one node from the IS-IS SPT
• Simplifies layer 2 multipathing
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 vPC+ Caveats
» vPC+ requirements
• vPC Peer Link runs as switchport mode fabricpath
• Implies Peer Link must be F1 module
• vPC Peers share fabricpath switch-id under vPC Domain
» vPC to vPC+ migration is disruptive
• Cisco Live FabricPath Migration Use Case BRKDCT-2202

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 Q&A

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