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CCIE Data Center

Nexus Switching

FabricPath

What is FabricPath?
Layer 2 Routing
MAC in MAC Routing
Alternative to running STP
Even with vPC you are still subject to STP
vPC is a physical triangle and logical P2P link
FP allows you to build arbitrary topologies
Full mesh, partial mesh, triangle, square, etc.

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FabricPath (FP) Terminology
Classical Ethernet (CE)
Regular Ethernet with regular flooding, regular STP, etc.
Leaf Switch
Connects CE domain to FP domain
Spine Switch
FP backbone switch with all ports in the FP domain only
FP Core Ports
Links on Leaf up to Spine, or Spine to Spine
i.e. the switchport mode fabricpath links
CE Edge Ports
Links on Leaf connecting to regular Classical Ethernet domain
i.e. not the switchport mode fabricpath links
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FabricPath Control Plane


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
Nexus 7K F1 & F2 and Nexus 5500 only
FabricPath is not TRILL
Similar logic but not interoperable
FP has the SRC and DST FP Switch IDs 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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