Routing in spine-leaf networking systems

摘要

Aspects of the present invention include extending routing capabilities to improve networking efficiencies. In embodiments, a spine-leaf network configuration may be provisioned as a single router to solve at least two issues: (1) local routing within a leaf; and (2) scalability of the hardware ARP table. In embodiments, one or more tables in the leaf node may be programmed so that data traffic coming from a first host in a first subnet or VLAN on the leaf and intended for a second host in a second subnet or VLAN on the leaf may be forwarded locally to the second host in the second subnet or VLAN without traversing to the spine layer.

主权项

1. A method for routing in a spine-leaf topology system comprising a spine layer comprising one or more spine nodes and one or more leaf layers comprising one or more leaf nodes, the method comprising:
assigning a spine Media Access Control (MAC) address to a leaf node, which has been configured for Layer 2 (L2) operations; and programming, via a centralized control plane operating at the spine layer, one or more Layer 3 (L3) tables in the leaf node to allow the leaf node to route data traffic locally, when appropriate, using one or more Layer 3 (L3) operations, without having the data traffic traverse to the spine layer.