This presentation looks at the evolution of DC architecture. Initially it discusses the problems our industry has faced and outlines key problem points that persist within the industry. This is then leads the conversation to traditional network architectures and their salvation through CLOS leaf and spine architecture. This foundation serves as the network titan, holding up the overlay's in the DC. Afterwards we look at how the problems aforementioned are solved with Overlay networking.

1. The strength of titans
building networks that support vertical
growth

2. Who am I ?
•
Enterprise Network
Architect at ESTA 000
•
Cisco certified
•
Juniper Ambassador and
certified
•
Tech Field Day delegate
•
blog.ciscoinferno.net
@pandom_

3. Topics
•
Issues with traditional
networks
•
Clos fabrics and spine /
leaf architectures
•
Overlay networking
•
Issues solved and
takeaways

4. “Never has so much been owed by so many to
so few.”
–Winston Churchill

5. Current challenges
Y U NO
WORK
RIGHT?!?!

6. •
Old application tiers
+ FW/LB
•
ACLs, Routes,
Subnets, VLANs
•
Current campus &
DC
architecture does
not
scale
Foundations

7. •
Poor time to market
•
North South focused topology for
East West applications
•
Logical/Physical/Virtual cluster….
Services

8. •
How many hops?
•
Traditional physical problems
•
It isn’t all about size
Scale

9. Drivers
•
Weak business
case
•
Poor market
evaluations
•
Wrong target
customers

10. Business culture
•
Box huggers
•
Old vs New
•
Marke-tecture
•
Emotional buy in

11. Can we solve these
problems?

13. What we
have to
contend
with
Average of 13 hops

14. How does my network
help me get here?

15. Clos Fabric
•
1953 - Telecommunications heritage
•
Three tier - Ingress, Middle, Egress
•
Allows us to build Spine and Leaf topologies.

16. Spine and Leaf
•
12,000 ports is a good start
•
Oversubscription
•
Easily expanded
•
Trident II

17. Multistage Clos
•
Fixed switches with Trident 2 chipsets - 500ns
•
Chassis - 5us between line cards
•
3 stage CLOS is 1.5us

18. Leveraging a CLOS
fabric

21. There are products
solving these problems
today

22. April 2nd
August 26th
September 16th
October 29th
November 7th

23. Thank me
later

24. •
End to End application smarts
•
CLOS/Spine and leaf
•
Reduce hair pinning
•
In-hypervisor services
Foundations

25. •
Reduced time to market
•
East West application
accommodated
•
Virtual everything with
physical egress
Services

26. •
It is like a fine wine
•
Small containers &
Deterministic failure domains
•
Size comes with strong base
building blocks
Scale

27. •
Clear business goals
•
Strong understanding of
customers
•
Identify opportunity and
deliver value add
Drivers

28. Business culture
•
Sweat equity = amazing
•
Hulk ‘silo’ Smash
•
Lift the veil - dissolve
the marketing
•
Involvement and
understanding

29. Takeaways
•
CLOS - Leaf spines are a sound and stable underlay
for tunnel fabrics
•
Foundation - Services - Scale - Drivers - Culture
ALL play their part.
•
NFV and SDN isn’t scary and technology such as
NSX allows you to work more closely with your
networking department and NOT around them.

30. Questions?

31. Thank you