Using TRILL, FabricPath, and VXLAN: Designing Massively Scalable Data Centers (MSDC) with Overlays

Designing Massively Scalable Data Centers with Overlays

TRILL, FabricPath, and VXLAN overlays help you distribute data traffic far more effectively, dramatically improving utilization in even the largest data center networks. Using TRILL, FabricPath, and VXLAN is the first practical and comprehensive guide to planning and establishing these high-efficiency overlay networks. The authors begin by reviewing today’s fast-growing data center requirements, and making a strong case for overlays in the Massive Scale Data Center (MSDC). Next, they introduce each leading technology option, including FabricPath, TRILL, LISP, VXLAN, NVGRE, OTV, and Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). They also present a chapter-length introduction to IS-IS, focusing on details relevant to the control of FabricPath and TRILL networks. Building on this foundation, they offer in-depth coverage of FabricPath: its advantages, architecture, forwarding, configuration, verification, and benefits in Layer-2 networks. Through examples, they explain TRILL’s architecture, functionality, and forwarding behavior, focusing especially on data flow. They also fully address VXLAN as a solution for realizing IP-based data center fabrics, including multi-tenant cloud applications.

Using TRILL, FabricPath, and VXLAN provides detailed strategies and methodologies for FabricPath, TRILL, and VXLAN deployment and migration, as well as best practices for management and troubleshooting. It also presents three detailed implementation scenarios, each reflecting realistic data center challenges. In particular, the authors show how to integrate multiple overlay technologies into a single end-to-end solution that offers exceptional flexibility, agility, and availability.

Sanjay Hooda, CCIE No. 11737, is currently a principal engineer at Cisco, where he works with embedded systems and helps define new product architectures. His current passion is to design the next-generation campus architecture, and he is focused on simplifying
the design and deployment of wired and wireless infrastructure. Over the last 17 years, Sanjay’s experience spans various areas including high availability; messaging in large-scale distributed systems; Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA); large-scale software projects; and enterprise campus and LAN,WAN, and data center network design.

Shyam Kapadia, Ph.D., is currently a technical leader in the Data Center Group at Cisco. He graduated from the University of Southern California with Ph.D. and master’s degrees in computer science in 2006. His research interests broadly lie in the area of networking systems including wired, wireless, ad-hoc, vehicular, and sensor networks. He has co-authored several conference and journal publications in these areas including a book chapter in the relatively nascent area of intermittently connected wireless networks (http://anrg.usc.edu/~kapadia/publications.html). At Cisco, for the first few years, he was an integral part of the team that delivered the next-generation Catalyst 6500 Sup 2T platform. During the past few years, he has been intrinsically involved in developing solutions for data center environments with more than 25 submitted patents in this area. Over the past 12 years, Shyam has been the speakers chair for a premiere Open Source conference, Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE), hosted in the Los Angeles area. In his spare time, he loves watching international movies and is passionate about sports like cricket, basketball, and American football.

Padmanabhan Krishnan is a software engineer in the Data Center Group at Cisco. He joined Cisco 7 years ago and has more than 12 years of experience in various areas of networking and telecommunication. He obtained his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Madras University, India. His research work for the master’s degree included Diffserv, MPLS traffic engineering, and QOS routing/Connection Admission Control in ad-hoc wireless networks. Padmanabhan has worked in many overlay technologies in Cisco such as 802.1ah, TRILL, FabricPath, and VPLS. He was responsible for the design and development of the core infrastructure used by the forwarding drivers and many Layer 2 features in the next generation Catalyst 6500 Sup 2T Platform. Prior to joining Cisco, Padmanabhan worked in ATM signaling and DVB-RCS, an interactive on-demand multimedia satellite communication system specification.