200-301 Question 51
Single answerAn organization has deployed a spine-leaf network architecture in their data center. During troubleshooting, you notice that one of the leaf switches is directly connected to another leaf switch instead of a spine switch. Why is this considered a misconfiguration?
- A
Leaf-to-leaf connections bypass the spine layer, breaking the non-blocking architecture.
- B
Leaf switches are designed to serve end devices, not interconnect with other leaf switches.
- C
Leaf-to-leaf connections increase the latency of data traffic flowing in the network.
- D
Leaf-to-leaf connections are redundant because all traffic can be routed through spine switches.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
In a spine-leaf architecture, leaf switches are only supposed to connect to spine switches to ensure a consistent, non-blocking design. Direct connections between leaf switches bypass the spine layer, disrupting the predictable traffic flow and breaking the architectural principles. This can lead to unintended consequences such as routing issues and unbalanced traffic distribution.
- A. Correct.
Leaf-to-leaf connections bypass the spine layer, which violates the fundamental design principle of a spine-leaf architecture where all east-west traffic must pass through the spine switches to maintain a non-blocking, predictable network design.
- B. Incorrect.
While leaf switches typically serve end devices, this is not the primary reason why direct connections between leaf switches are considered a misconfiguration in a spine-leaf architecture.
- C. Incorrect.
Leaf-to-leaf connections do not inherently increase latency; instead, they disrupt the architecture's intended traffic flow and routing predictability.
- D. Incorrect.
While the spine switches can handle all traffic routing, this statement does not address why direct leaf-to-leaf connections violate the design principle of a spine-leaf topology.