200-301 Question 50
Select 3An organization is designing a new data center network using a spine-leaf architecture. The team is focused on ensuring high availability, consistent low latency, and scalability. Which of the following characteristics of spine-leaf architecture contribute to meeting these requirements?
- A
All devices in the spine layer are interconnected with all devices in the leaf layer.
- B
Traffic between servers in the same rack bypasses the spine layer to reduce latency.
- C
The architecture provides equal-cost multipathing (ECMP) for traffic flows.
- D
Spine-leaf architecture eliminates the need for a core layer in traditional 3-tier designs.
- E
Leaf switches connect only to each other to simplify the network topology.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: A, C, D
Explanation
Spine-leaf architecture is designed to provide high availability, consistent low latency, and scalability. Key characteristics include all leaf switches connecting to all spine switches (ensuring multiple paths and redundancy), support for equal-cost multipathing (ECMP) to balance traffic across multiple paths, and the elimination of the core layer found in traditional designs. These features make spine-leaf suitable for modern data centers requiring high performance and scalability.
- A. Correct.
Correct. In a spine-leaf architecture, every leaf switch is connected to every spine switch, ensuring high availability and consistent low latency by providing multiple paths for traffic.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Traffic between servers in the same rack is handled by the leaf switch, but it does not bypass the spine layer for inter-rack communication. Spine-leaf design is intended for scalable interconnection.
- C. Correct.
Correct. Equal-cost multipathing (ECMP) distributes traffic across multiple paths, improving both redundancy and bandwidth utilization, which contributes to high availability and low latency.
- D. Correct.
Correct. Spine-leaf eliminates the core layer found in traditional 3-tier architectures, simplifying the network design and improving scalability.
- E. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Leaf switches do not connect to each other; they connect to spine switches. This ensures a predictable and scalable topology.