Rack Types (Design)
Rack Type Overview
Rack types define the type and number of leafs, access switches and/or generic systems (as of version 4.0) that are used in rack builds. Since rack types don't define specific vendors or their devices, you can design your network before choosing hardware. If you need to create a template, you'll use rack types to build the structure of your network.
Rack types include the following details:
Summary | Description |
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Name | 17 characters or fewer, and (optional) description |
Fabric connectivity design |
|
Leafs | Description |
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Name | 64 characters or fewer |
Leaf Logical Device | Used as ToR leaf switch network device(s) |
Links per spine, and Link speed (L3 Clos Only) | Number of leaf-spine links and their speed. |
Redundancy Protocol |
CAUTION: Make sure that the intended platform supports the chosen redundancy protocol. For example, SONiC doesn't support L3 MLAG peers, and ESI is supported on Junos only.
|
Tags | (New in version 4.0) User-specified. Select tags from drop-down list generated from global catalog or create tags on-the-fly (which then become part of the global catalog). Tags used in rack types are embedded, so any subsequent changes to tags in the global catalog do not affect the rack type. |
Access Switches - Junos ONLY - Limited support. See Access Layer Switches for more information.
Generic Systems (new in version 4.0) | Description |
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Name | 64 characters or fewer |
Generic system count | Number of systems in the set |
Port Channel ID Min, and Max | Port channel IDs are used when rendering leaf device port-channel configuration towards generic systems. default: 1-4096. You can customize this field (as of version 3.3.0). |
Logical Device | The generic system network device |
Tags | (new in version 4.0) User-specified. Select tags from drop-down list generated from global catalog or create tags on-the-fly (which then become part of the global catalog). Useful for specifying generic systems as servers or external routers on nodes and links. Tags used in rack types are embedded, so any subsequent changes to tags in the global catalog do not affect the rack type. |
Logical Link |
|
You can also add generic systems to blueprints as a Day 2 operation. See Add Generic System.
From the left navigation menu, navigate to Design > Rack Types to go to rack types in the design (global) catalog. Click a rack type name to see its details. You can create, clone, edit, and delete rack types.
Create Rack Type
Example: Create Rack Type
This example shows how to create a rack type for a dual-connected L2 rack with two AOS-48x10+6x100-1 logical device leaf switches, each with 4-100 GbE spine links and forty-eight dual-connected 10 GbE generic systems.
Edit Rack Type in Global Catalog
Changes to rack types in the global catalog do not affect rack types that have been embedded into templates (or blueprints that were created from those templates). See the sections below for more information.
- To edit a rack type in the global catalog, either from the list view (Design > Rack Type) or the details view, click the Edit button for the rack type to edit.
- Make your changes.
- Click Update (bottom-right) to update the rack type in the global catalog and return to the list view.
Edit Rack Type in Template
If the intent is for a template to use a modified rack type, then after editing the rack type in the global catalog it must be imported into the template. For more information, see Update Rack Type in Rack Based Template on the Templates page (Design > Templates > Edit Template).
Edit Rack Type in Blueprint
You can edit rack types in active running blueprints (as of version 3.2.0). For more information, see Edit Rack <edit_rack> (Blueprints > Staged > Physical > Racks).
Delete Rack Type
Deleting a rack type in the global catalog does not affect templates and blueprints that previously embedded that rack type. For information about deleting racks from blueprints, see Delete Rack (at Blueprints > Staged > Physical > Racks).
- To delete a rack type in the global catalog, either from the list view (Design > Rack Type) or the details view, click the Delete button for the rack type to delete.
- Click Delete to delete the rack type and return to the list view.