Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Configuration Manual page 90

Campus Fabric
Overview of Campus Fabric
Cisco Nexus 7700 is positioned as a fabric border node in the Campus Fabric architecture.
Figure 22: Campus Fabric Architecture
The key elements of the Campus fabric architecture are explained below.
Campus Fabric : The Campus Fabric is an instance of a "Network Fabric". A Network Fabric describes a
network topology where data traffic is passed through interconnecting switches, while providing the abstraction
of a single Layer-2 and/or Layer-3 device. This provides seamless connectivity, independent of physical
topology, with policy application and enforcement at the edges of the fabric. Enterprise fabric uses IP overlay,
which makes the network appear like a single virtual router/switch without the use of clustering technologies.
This logical view is independent of the control plane used to distribute information to the distributed routers
or switches.
Fabric Edge Node : Fabric edge nodes are responsible for admitting, encapsulating/decapsulating and
forwarding traffic to and from endpoints connected to the fabric edge. Fabric edge nodes lie at the perimeter
of the fabric and are the first points for attachment of the policy. It is to be noted that the endpoints need not
be directly attached to the fabric edge node. They could be indirectly attached to a fabric edge node via an
intermediate Layer-2 network that lies outside the fabric domain.
Traditional Layer-2 networks, wireless access points or end-hosts are connected to Fabric Edge nodes.
Fabric Intermediate Node: Fabric intermediate nodes provide the Layer-3 underlay transport service to
fabric traffic. These nodes are pure layer-3 forwarders that connect the Fabric Edge and Fabric Border nodes.
In addition, Fabric intermediate nodes may be capable of inspecting the fabric metadata and could apply
policies based on the fabric metadata (not mandatory). However, typically, all policy enforcement is at the
Fabric Edge and Border nodes.
Fabric Border Node : Fabric border nodes connect traditional Layer-3 networks or different fabric domains
to the Campus Fabric domain.
If there are multiple Fabric domains, the Fabric border nodes connect a fabric domain to one or more fabric
domains, which could be of the same or different type. Fabric border nodes are responsible for translation of
context from one fabric domain to another. When the encapsulation is the same across different fabric domains,
Cisco Nexus 7000 Series NX-OS VXLAN Configuration Guide
82