Comparison : Cisco FabricPath Vs Cisco VXLAN Flood and Learn Vs Cisco VXLAN MP-BGP EVPN Vs Cisco MSDC

Today I am going to talk about the Cisco Spine-Leaf Layer 2 and Layer 3 fabric comparison. Here in this article, we will compare different four cisco spine leaf architecture. These architectures are Cisco FabricPath, Cisco VXLAN Flood and Learn, Cisco VXLAN MP-BGP EVPN and Cisco MSDC Layer 3. 

Let us have a look on all these in brief and then we can have the comparison between all these.

Cisco FabricPath

Cisco FabricPath is simply a MAC-in-MAC frame encapsulation. With the help of Cisco FabricPath, we can create extremely scalable Layer 2 multipath networks without the Spanning Tree Protocol. Such networks are especially appropriate for huge virtualization deployments, private clouds, and high-performance computing (HPC) environments.

Fig 1.1- Cisco FabricPath

Cisco VXLAN Flood and Learn

Cisco VXLAN Flood and Learn is simply a MAC-in-IP packet encapsulation. It can support Layer 2 multicast traffic and Layer 3 IP multicast traffic. Cisco VXLAN flood-and-learn spine-and-leaf network transports Layer 2 frames over the Layer 3 IP underlay network. But it is still a flood-and-learn-based Layer 2 technology. As the number of hosts in a broadcast domain rises, it suffers the same flooding challenges as the FabricPath spine-and-leaf network. 

Fig 1.2- Cisco VXLAN Flood and Learn

The Layer 3 routing function is laid on top of the Layer 2 network. Common Layer 3 designs use centralized routing: that is, the Layer 3 routing function is centralized on specific switches (spine switches or border leaf switches). The VXLAN flood-and-learn spine-and-leaf network supports up to two active-active gateways with vPC for internal VXLAN routing.

Cisco VXLAN MP-BGP EVPN

Cisco VXLAN MP-BGP EVPN spine-and-leaf architecture customs MP-BGP EVPN for the control plane for VXLAN. It offers control-plane and data-plane split-up and a unified control plane for both Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding in a VXLAN overlay network. The Layer 3 internal routed traffic is routed directly by the distributed anycast gateway on each ToR switch in a scale-out fashion. Cisco VXLAN MP-BGP EVPN enables control-plane learning of end-host Layer 2 and Layer 3 reachability information, enabling organizations to build more robust and scalable VXLAN overlay networks

Cisco MSDC 

Cisco’s Massively Scalable Data Center (MSDC) is a framework that data center architects can use to build elastic data centers that host a few applications that are distributed across thousands of servers and that scale from department to internet scale audiences. 

Unlike a traditional data center, which hosts applications deployed in silos, the MSDC data center is characterized by a few very large applications that are distributed over geographically-distributed homogenous pools of compute and storage.

Fig 1.3- Cisco Spine-Leaf Layer 2 and Layer 3 Fabric