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Data Center Network Topologies on DC Assurance

A data center network consists of various components like servers and storage devices. Data center networking architecture refers to the design and organization of the network systems within a data center. A data center network must be designed to strike a balance between reliability, performance, agility, scalability and cost.

You can use the templates in Apstra Data Center Director to create a blueprint and design your data center network. For more information, see Create Blueprint in the Apstra Data Center Director User Guide.

Juniper Data Center Assurance displays the data center network topologies on the Topology tab on the Dashboard page, the Service Topology View, and the Impact Analysis pages. DC Assurance also provides actionable insights about the device health and performance, events, and impacts of those events in a data center network.

Figure 1 shows the Overview tab on the Dashboard page. The various widgets provide information about the devices in the site(s), their role, anomalies in the network and so on.

Figure 1: Overview tab on the Dashboard page Juniper Data Center Assurance dashboard showcasing network health, inventory, anomalies, and port activity, aiding data center monitoring.

Figure 2 shows the Impact Analysis page with information about data center events and anomalies along with the impact of these anomalies on the data center network.

Figure 2: Impact Analysis page Juniper Data Center Assurance Impact Analysis page showing the network topology, highlighting the anomalies and changes on the network devices.

The network administrators use these insights to monitor the network and resolve issues to ensure that services are not impacted. Use the filters on the Service Topology View and Impact Analysis pages to select the layers to be displayed.

Figure 3: Show Layers Filter The Filters options with Time Increment, Time Range, and Show Layers dropdown with selectable data layers including SuperSpine, VM, Spine, Leaf, Host, and so on.

Currently, DC Assurance supports the following data center network architectures:

3-Stage Clos Architecture

The 3-stage Clos Architecture provides organizations with a data center network that is fast, adaptable to change, scalable, and reliable. This topology consists of 3 components - server leaf switches, border leaf switches, and spine switches.

DC Assurance displays information and provides insights about the spines, leaf devices, hosts, and services in the data center network.

Figure 4: 3-Stage Clos Topology Topology tab on the Dashboard from Juniper Data Center Assurance showing a 3-stage Clos architecture with spines, leaf devices, hosts, and services.

3-Stage Clos Architecture with Virtual Devices

The 3-Stage Clos Architecture with Virtual Devices combines physical networks with network virtualization. This topology builds on a 3-stage fabric as the foundation for virtual network integration. In this design, the host layer is connected to different services through VMs.

DC Assurance collects information about the VMs in the data center and displays the VM layers in the topology views. To enable this feature, you must configure vCenter server on the Adopt Apstra Edge page. You can configure multiple vCenters.

Figure 5: 3-Stage Clos Topology with Virtual Devices Topology tab on the Dashboard from Juniper Data Center Assurance showing a 3-stage Clos architecture with spines, leaf devices, hosts, VMs and services.

Collapsed Data Center Fabric

The collapsed data center fabric is a two-switch network fabric architecture designed for small network deployments. In collapsed fabric, switches perform the roles of spine, leaf, and border leaf switches. This design allows for high availability network deployments with minimum switch hardware. However, the hardware constraints limit the scalability of this architecture.

Figure 6: Collapsed Data Center Fabric Topology Topology tab on the Dashboard from Juniper Data Center Assurance showing a collapsed data center fabric.

5-Stage Clos Architecture

The 5-stage Clos architecture is similar to the 3-stage data center design with the exception of a superspine layer. This design allows for scaling large scale data center design with requirements for large datastores and the compute nodes that need to connect to the data storage. In this topology, an additional layer of superspine devices interconnects multiple pods consisting of spine-and-leaf layers (similar to 3-Stage fabric), thus creating a large network.

DC Assurance displays information and provides insights about the superspine layer, spines, leaf devices, hosts, and services in the data center network.

Note:

Juniper Data Center Assurance currently does not support the display of pods.
Figure 7: 5-Stage Clos Topology Topology tab on the Dashboard from Juniper Data Center Assurance showing a 5-stage Clos architecture with superspines, spines, leaf devices, hosts, and services.
Note:

If your 5-Stage Clos fabric is rendered as a 3-Stage Clos fabric on DC Assurance, you must make a minor change in the site blueprint (for example, change the blueprint description) in Juniper Apstra Edge device. The data center network is rendered as a 5-Stage Clos fabric displaying the superspine layer after DC Assurance synchronizes data with the Edge device.

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