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Understanding ACI Hardware and Topologies

By Ammar Ahmadi.
Sample Chapter is provided courtesy of Cisco Press.
Date: Jan 4, 2023.

Chapter Information

Chapter Description

ACI is designed to allow small and large enterprises and service providers to build massively scalable data centers using a relatively small number of very flexible topologies. In this sample chapter from CCNP Data Center Application Centric Infrastructure 300-620 DCACI Official Cert Guide, the author team details the topologies with which an ACI fabric can be built or extended.

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Leaf Hardware

Cisco ACI leaf hardware options include Nexus 9300 Series fixed form factor switches. Not all switches in the noted switch families can be deployed in ACI mode.

The primary factors that guide leaf purchasing decisions are the desired port bandwidths, feature requirements, hardware generation, and the required number of target state ports.

First-Generation Leaf Switches

First-generation ACI leaf switches are Nexus 9300 Series platforms that are based on the Application Leaf Engine (ALE) ASICs.

The hardware resources that enable whitelisting of traffic are ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) resources, referred to as the policy CAM.

Policy CAM sizes vary depending on the hardware. The policy CAM size and behavior limitations in first-generation switches tended to sometimes limit whitelisting projects.

There are also a number of other capability differences between first- and second-generation leaf hardware, such as handling of Layer 4 operations and multicast routing.

Second-Generation Leaf Switches

Second-generation ACI leaf switches are Nexus 9300 Series platforms that are based on cloud-scale ASICs. Second-generation leaf switches support Remote Leaf and ACI Multi-Tier, have significantly larger policy CAM sizes, and offer enhanced hardware capabilities and port speeds.

ACI leaf switches whose model numbers end in EX, FX, FX2, and FXP are considered second-generation leaf switches. Table 2-7 provides details about second-generation switches that have 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet copper port connectivity for servers.

Table 2-7 Second-Generation 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet Copper Leaf Switches

Characteristic	Nexus 93108TC-EX	Nexus 9348GC-FXP	Nexus 93108TC-FX	Nexus 93216TC-FX2
Form factor	1 RU fixed	1 RU fixed	1 RU fixed	2 RU fixed
100 Mbps and1 Gigabit Ethernet copper ports	N/A	48	N/A	N/A
100 Mbps and 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet copper ports	48	N/A	48	96
10/25 Gigabit Ethernet ports	N/A	N/A	4	N/A
40/100 Gigabit Ethernet ports	6	2	6	12
ACI Multi-Pod support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote Leaf support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 1 leaf	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 2 leaf	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

The Nexus 9348GC-FXP switch has 48 ports, offering 100 Mbps or 1 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. These ports have RJ-45 connections, eliminating the need for transceivers. Due to its low cost and support for cloud-scale features, the Nexus 9348GC-FXP is an ideal replacement for Fabric Extenders.

Table 2-8 details second-generation switches that provide 1/10/25 Gigabit Ethernet fiber port connectivity for servers.

Table 2-8 Second-Generation 1/10/25 Gigabit Ethernet Fiber Leaf Switches

Characteristic	Nexus 93180YC-EX	Nexus 93180YC-FX	Nexus 93240YC-FX2	Nexus 93360YC-FX2
Form factor	1 RU fixed	1 RU fixed	1.2 RU fixed	2 RU fixed
1/10/25 Gigabit Ethernet ports	48	48	48	96
40/100 Gigabit Ethernet ports	6	6	12	12
ACI Multi-Pod support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote Leaf support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 1 leaf	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 2 leaf	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table 2-9 lists details on the only second-generation switch available at the time of writing that provides 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for servers.

Table 2-9 Second-Generation 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet Leaf Switches

Characteristic	Nexus 9336C-FX2
Form factor	1 RU fixed
40/100 Gigabit Ethernet ports	36
ACI Multi-Pod support	Yes
Remote Leaf support	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 1 leaf	Yes
Can be used as a Tier 2 leaf	Yes

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