How to Monitor a FabricPath Network an owiasz Mar., 0 enefits Monitor FabricPath and other physical networks with one solution Preserve tool investment, increase tool allocation and use Increase network security and performance Reduce time to resolution Enable remote and centralized monitoring Maintain 00% visibility 00% of the time bout the uthor an is a Network Solutions Engineer with PON Professional Services. He is a NP, P certified network professional with over 0 years of industry experience. ased out of PON s Wilsonville, OR headquarters, an works with PON customers around the world to design and implement effective aggregation and monitoring switch topologies capable of meeting the ever-changing needs of today s IT networks. With the increasing scale of networks, higher level of complexity and the need to be always on, pressure to have monitoring and capture is evolving from nice to have into a business mandate. In a recent ESG study, % of monitoring professionals stated that it is critical or very important to identify the root cause of network issues. In order to identify the root cause, three-quarters (%) required access to packetlevel information. However, with migration from G to 0G, virtualization server workloads over 0%, and the increased amount of network traffic has caused a shift in network architecture. To handle the complexity of increased capacity, performance and virtual workload flexibility, a more effective means of routing and switching is required beyond purely better transport protocols. isco has developed FabricPath to address these network pressures, but in doing so, FabricPath encapsulates the frame resulting in zero percent visibility to the original frame s data resulting in monitoring professionals being unable to identify the root cause of network issues. To understand how to monitor a FabricPath network, you must first take a look at how FabricPath changes the network architecture. What is FabricPath? FabricPath is a isco proprietary feature of the NX-OS which alters the traditional design of the Layer data plane in a network to address the demands of high performance computing, resource pooling, workload flexibility, and virtualization (e.g. atacenter environments). Standard network design calls for deploying small Layer domains with multiple Layer boundaries providing connectivity across the network. TEHNIL RIEF
Technical rief How to Monitor a FabricPath Network ecause traditional Layer domains depend on the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to insure loop free topologies, the network is hampered by the fundamental issues of bandwidth bottlenecks and application disruption inherent with blocking ports and renegotiating STP paths. To mitigate the impact of these limitations, networks are designed with small Layer domains to afford STP more stability and scalability. This approach is quickly becoming obsolete within the corporate ata enter due to high performance computing and virtualization requirements to maintain server capacity and high availability in the same VLN. isco has addressed the scaling limitations of STP by introducing FabricPath in their NX-OS. FabricPath combines the simplicity and efficiency of Layer switching with the scalability and reliability of Layer routing and eliminates the need for STP, creating the next generation of highly scalable, loop free Layer Ethernet networks with increased numbers of active and forwarding links. FabricPath provides a multipath ability for connecting every system in the ata enter. The multipath automatically adapts to link failures to provide optimum frame delivery. dditionally, FabricPath guarantees the lowest node-to-node latency by always selecting the shortest path available through the infrastructure. Virtualized environments benefit from FabricPath because there is no longer the requirement to have switch ports reside in the same Layer domain in order to share a common VLN. With FabricPath any port in any VLN on any switch can now exist anywhere in the ata enter. andwidth ottleneck ata enter ata enter Layer Layer Layer Layer ridged omain ridged omain isco FSS with FabricPath Virtual Machine Mobility onstrained to a Physical Location Virtual Machine Mobility Possible Networkwide How FabricPath Works FabricPath network is designed similarly to the classic three tier model of network design. The core layer will host the Spine Switches and a collapsed access and distribution layer will host the Leaf or FabricPath Edge switches. Traditional classical Ethernet links connect into the FabricPath by way of a Leaf Switch. Frames reach the Leaf Switch and are encapsulated into a FabricPath frame to be transported through the fabric. The Leaf switch adds a FabricPath header and recalculates a new R for the frame. The new header contains routable source and destination addresses. The source address is the FabricPath switch I formatted similarly to a M address and the destination address is the address of the switch the frame is to be forwarded. The frame is then forwarded through the FabricPath loud until it reaches the destination Leaf Switch where it is de-encapsulated and delivered in its original format to the classical Ethernet network or device. lassical Ethernet omain FabricPath omain Web Servers Leaf Switches Spine Switches
0..0. /..0.0.ºc JJ -XR S/N: 0000 Ver: Hit [Enter] for configuration NEL UP OWN ENTER TELLPTH Model I XR TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NT NT NT NT NT NT NT NT Technical rief How to Monitor a FabricPath Network FabricPath uses the Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System protocol (ISIS) to provide multiple parallel paths for every node in the FabricPath network. ISIS uses the outer destination address (O) and the outer source address (OS) values in the header to calculate Equal ost Multipathing (EMP) for choosing paths for the traffic flow. The path is assigned on ingress and is encoded in the FTag field of the forwarded header. FabricPath Encapsulation FabricPath Encapsulation -yte M-in-M -yte M-in-M Header Header lassical Ethernet Frame M SM 0.Q Original E Fame R isco FabricPath Frame Outer () Outer S FP Tag () () M SM 0.Q R (new) bits bits bits bits bits bits 0 bits bits Endnode I (:0) I/G U/L Endnode I (:) RSV 000/L Switch I Sub Switch I Port I Ftag TTL Switch I Unique number identifying each FabricPath switch Sub-Switch I Identifies devices/hosts connected via VP+ Port I Identifies the destination of source interface Ftag (Forwarding tag) Unique number identifying topology and/or multidestination distribution tree TTL ecremented at each switch hop to prevent frames looping infinitely FabricPath Hardware & Use ase isco Nexus 000 series switches are commonly used for Spine Switches and the Nexus 000 series for Leaf Switches. typical customer use-case provided by S highlights this type of architecture of utilizing FabricPath to simplify Nexus 000 and 000 deployment. s they are likely to tap links in highlighted area below, captured frames will include FabricPath encapsulation that will need to be removed for processing by Network nalyzer tools. lassical Ethernet omain Web Servers Leaf Switches s a side note, the FabricPath network can be extended by utilizing the Nexus 000 series Fabric Extenders. When a Nexus 000 is connected to a Nexus 000/000 it will run the FEX protocol on its uplinks. The FEX protocol creates a connection that in essence emulates a backplane connection on the Nexus 000/000 extending the Leaf Switches reach to an area where additional classical Ethernet ports can be connected into the fabric. Monitoring FabricPath eployments isco Nexus 000/000 line is aimed directly at the fast growing datacenter segment and the FabricPath protocol enables more flexible layer options while eliminating many existing performance bottlenecks. With the increasing FabricPath footprint in atacenter deployments, network engineers face the additional challenge of monitoring within these FabricPath links with network analysis tools that may not be able to read the augmented FabricPath frames. FabricPath omain Spine Switches With PON s latest FabricPath stripping capability, network engineers can easily TP these links and strip the FabricPath information and send the frame to the necessary tools for analysis. In addition, PON H G F E
Technical rief How to Monitor a FabricPath Network performs aggregation (with other non FabricPath links), filtering and rate conversion to tools across G, 0G and 0G links allowing customers to reuse or share existing tools. Finally, with the latest blade (I-0-E-), operators benefit from best in class density ( ports in RU to ports in RU) and can select FabricPath stripping option on ingress or egress links across any of these ports. Utilizing PON s WebXR interface, operators can quickly access the blade. They can then select FabricPath stripping from the GUI menu along with variety of other port options on the blade. Feature options are available on ingress or egress.
Technical rief How to Monitor a FabricPath Network y selecting FabricPath stripping option, FabricPath ingress links to PON will be stripped of FabricPath encapsulation and sent to Monitoring tools as lassical Ethernet Frames (with recalculated R). To tools from PON with lade lassical Ethernet Frame M SM 0.Q R R (new) Original E Fame Outer () isco FabricPath Frame bits I/G U/L Endnode I (:) RSV 000/L bits Endnode I (:0) Outer S () FP Tag () M SM 0.Q bits bits bits bits 0 bits bits Switch I Sub Switch I Port I Ftag TTL Utilizing PON as the aggregation monitoring switch, a complete FabricPath network can now be aggregated with any physical or virtual non-fabricpath network deployment and monitored by the appropriate network analysis tool. Spine Switch Niksun 0 TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- 0..0. /..0.0.ºc UP OWN ENTER TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- NT 0 NT 0 0 0 NT 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NT NT 0 0 Riverbed E NT F G H 0 NT Model I XR TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- 0 I NTELL P TH Leaf Switch 0 FabricPath omain TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- TELLFLEX lade I-0-E- 0 Hit [Enter] for configuration NEL -XR S/N: 0000 Ver: NT Netwitness lassical Ethernet omain FireEye Virtual Machines http://www.emulex.com/pr/0-00 http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-000-series-switches/white_paper_c-0.html PON ontact Us Email sales@apcon.com if you have any questions PON develops innovative, scalable technology solutions to enhance network monitoring, support IT traffic analysis, and streamline IT network management and security. PON is the industry leader for state-of-the-art IT data aggregation, filtering, and network switching products, as well as leading-edge PON, Inc. apcon.com + 0 00 00 0 0 PON, Inc. ll Rights Reserved. TELLPTH is a Registered Trademark of PON, Inc. @PON company/pon PON is an Equal Opportunity Employer MFV 00-R-0 management-software support. Organizations in over 0 countries depend on PON network infrastructure solutions. ustomers include Global Fortune 000 companies, banks and financial services institutions, telecommunication service providers, government and military, and computer equipment manufacturers.