Now I want to be clear, this challenge was intended to give us some amount of
flexibility
and creativity because there's not necessarily going to be right or wrong
answers.
Certainly, if we just said, "Hey, we're going to connect all of these access
clauses directly
to each other."
Yeah, that would be a wrong answer.
But as far as some of the key points there about collapsed core versus
dedicated core,
there's probably going to need to be a lot more information provided if we're
going to have
a right and wrong answer.
So instead, I'm more interested in whether we can, first of all, make those WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
So instead, I'm more interested in whether we can, first of all, make those
decisions,
understand some of the criteria, maybe questions we would ask if this was a
real world scenario,
and then ultimately, can I justify my decision and that would tie back to maybe
making some
assumptions about the size of the network.
So let's just kind of go through this process together.
So we were told to create a basic network design.
We've got four different access closets.
These are our access closets and a head end closet up here. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
These are our access closets and a head end closet up here.
And so here we're going to have, this is where we could deploy distribution and
core.
And here, down here, these are our access switches.
We have fiber connections that go to two other locations.
So we'll just call these site two and site three.
And we have firewalls that also bring in the internet there and that end. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
And we have firewalls that also bring in the internet there and that end.
So for our design, we need to make some decisions here.
Well, I guess I didn't include the access switches.
So, and that's fine.
For the most part, we're not too worried about the access switches.
But we've got these access switches.
So do we want to deploy a collapsed core or a dedicated core layer?
This topology is starting to hit that threshold where we might consider a core
dedicated core. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
dedicated core.
Think about the benefits of that.
If I have a dedicated core layer and a dedicated distribution layer, my
distribution layer now
is going to manage all of these access closets, meaning that we're going to
have all of the
SBI's here.
But then we have all of the routing here at the core layer.
This means that if we have some kind of major layer to issue and this network
goes down,
that our other sites can come into the core and still access the internet. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
that our other sites can come into the core and still access the internet.
So those are some of the benefits.
Now is it really required for site two and site three to come into dedicated
switches?
No, not at all.
If I were to collapse these together and now we just have a pair of switches
here that is
performing the routing and the SBI's.
Well yeah, we might have issues with a failure type of scenario like we talked
about, but because
we only have a few sites, the performance concerns are probably not there. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
I should be able to expect a lot of performance or not a lot of performance
issues.
Now next though, we've got to consider the fact that we have some amount of
access points
and users coming in to this head and site.
So we've got access points out here.
We have users and they're coming in here.
So now things get a little bit more interesting because where do we connect
these?
With the collapsed core and distribution concept, we probably don't want to
collapse our access
layer in there. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
layer in there.
Furthermore, because this is an access point, we're going to require a POE.
So we might consider deploying a pair of access switches.
And let me just draw those up here, I guess.
So we bring them into a pair of access switches and then we connect those into
either our distribution
layer or our collapsed core and distribution.
Now if we hadn't collapsed our core, maybe we could have brought them into the
distribution
switches, but the conversation, a lot of it's going to revolve around, did WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
switches, but the conversation, a lot of it's going to revolve around, did
those distribution
switches support power of our ethernet or not.
We start to see how we can end up with a lot of different designs here.
Now lastly, we were told whether to extend layer 2 or layer 3 out here to the
access layer.
And for that matter, I suppose, deploying a fabric design.
Again, really no right or wrong answer here.
I will say that if we were collapsing this together and we're worried about
that isolation
issue, well, maybe we could just extend layer 3 to the access layer and then we WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
issue, well, maybe we could just extend layer 3 to the access layer and then we
don't need
to worry about any kind of layer 2 failure happening here.
If this is layer 3, there won't be a loop, there won't be broadcast storms
because it's
all layer 3 everywhere.
Furthermore, if we're not put off by the idea of deploying a fabric, we could
consider a fabric,
but I will say for just four closets, we're probably not going to get as much
benefit out
of that.
Extending layer 3 and fabric technology, the more access closets we have, the WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
Extending layer 3 and fabric technology, the more access closets we have, the
more benefit
we're going to get.
Because from a layer 2 perspective, just having four closets, it's really not
going to create
that large of a broadcast domain.
So maybe we went with layer 2 because we said that there aren't enough access
closets
to justify it.
Maybe we said layer 3 or fabric because we want to create isolation from the
collapsed
core distribution that we created.
So again, lots and lots of options. WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
So again, lots and lots of options.
Really it's more just about the conversation.
Did we come up with some solutions and have good justification for it?
Maybe by just sitting here talking about it, maybe there are some ideas you
hadn't considered,
like the POE thing.
Maybe we didn't really consider the fact that we needed POE.
And so we plugged them straight into our distribution switches, but no matter
what here, as
long as we have the underlying principles of what we're trying to accomplish
and how
we can best accomplish it, it's going to give us the capability of having those WEBVTT X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:900000
we can best accomplish it, it's going to give us the capability of having those
architectural
conversations around collapsed design, two tier and three tier models, as well
as layer
2, layer 3, even fabric, access layer designs.
I hope there's been informative for you and I'd like to thank you for viewing.