By Harpreet Dillon
Business Benefits of SPINE & LEAF Architecture
The SPINE & LEAF architecture is an evolution of traditional datacenter to address the rapidly emerging network requirement. SPINE & LEAF architecture is best suited for cloud service providers or large enterprises, which runs very critical business applications and demands high network performance, high network bandwidth availability, loop-free environment and low latency in the network.
Datacenter networks have been rapidly evolving in the recent years due to heavy workloads. Unlike traditional enterprises, the modern datacenters demand a very high network throughput to cater to heavy workload needs. Hence, network latency and throughput are extremely important for application performance, while packet loss is completely unacceptable.
In modern datacenters, an alternative to the traditional network topology has emerged, which is known as SPINE & LEAF. This architecture is designed to provide very scalable throughput in a uniform and predictable manner, across all connected servers. This architecture has two main components, SPINE switches and LEAF switches. The spine is composed of high-throughput Layer 3 switches with high port density and leaf switches are the same as access layer, which provide network connection points for servers. This architecture has proven to deliver the high bandwidth, low-latency, non-blocking server-to-server connectivity that is required for a massively scalable datacenter. SPINE & LEAF architecture uses Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (Trill) and Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) technologies to provide loop-free path to the connected hosts.
In modern datacenters, an alternative to the traditional network topology has emerged, which is known as SPINE & LEAF. This architecture is designed to provide very scalable throughput in a uniform and predictable manner, across all connected servers. This architecture has two main components, SPINE switches and LEAF switches. The spine is composed of high-throughput Layer 3 switches with high port density and leaf switches are the same as access layer, which provide network connection points for servers. This architecture has proven to deliver the high bandwidth, low-latency, non-blocking server-to-server connectivity that is required for a massively scalable datacenter. SPINE & LEAF architecture uses Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (Trill) and Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) technologies to provide loop-free path to the connected hosts.
Fig: Architecture Drawing
Challenges in Current Infrastructure
- Network downtime: The traditional network faces downtime issues due to loops, which are caused by the current three-tier architecture model.
- Under-utilization of resources: The network resources are not fully used due to technology constraints.
- Latency: The traditional network faces latency issues as it cannot generate desired throughput, which can certainly cause business loss.
- Optimal utilization of resources: SPINE & LEAF architecture provides an opportunity to fully utilize all network resources through various non-blocking & loop-free techniques.
- Operational efficiency: This architecture provides high bandwidth & low latency, which improves network performance and brings efficiency in the network.
- Reduced network congestion: SPINE & LEAF architecture reduces network congestion through shared buffer-switching platform for leaf node.
- Lower power consumption: This architecture uses multiple 10G optics instead of single 40G optics, which decreases the power consumption. The power consumption of 40G optics is ten times more than that of 10G optics.
The SPINE & LEAF architecture is an evolution of traditional datacenter to address the rapidly emerging network requirement. SPINE & LEAF architecture is best suited for cloud service providers or large enterprises, which runs very critical business applications and demands high network performance, high network bandwidth availability, loop-free environment and low latency in the network.
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