Security in Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics

One of my readers sent me an interesting question:

How does one impose a security policy on servers connected via a Clos fabric? The traditional model of segregating servers into vlans/zones and enforcing policy with a security device doesn’t fit here. Can VRF-lite be used on the mesh to accomplish segregation?

Good news: the security aspects of leaf-and-spine fabrics are no different from more traditional architectures.

Leaf-and-spine (or Clos) architecture is just a pretty optimal way of connecting switches in a fabric that results in equidistant endpoints. Here are two slides from my Clos Fabric Explained webinar that illustrate the difference.


End-to-end bandwidth in traditional data center networks (source)

End-to-end bandwidth in a 2-tier design (source)

As long as the leaf nodes have the ability to spread the traffic across all uplinks, leaf-and-spine architecture can implement layer-2 or layer-3 networks. Layer-2 leaf-and-spine architectures may be limited to two spine nodes (in a VSS/vPC/MC-LAG cluster) unless you’re deploying one of the layer-2 ECMP technologies (Trill, FabricPath, VCS Fabric, SPB…).

You can also implement a mixed layer-2+layer-3 leaf-and-spine network with layer-3 forwarding implemented in the core switches (using any variant of multi-node FHRP) or across all leaf switches.

I would strongly recommend using layer-3 leaf-and-spine fabric with overlay virtual networks on top of it, but that’s a different story.

Connecting a security device to a leaf-and-spine fabric is no different from connecting a security device to a traditional data center network – you have to pull multiple VLANs (or VRFs) to the ToR switch to which the security device is connected.

I would virtualize the security device and connect it to overlay virtual networks, but yet again, that’s a different story.

Summary: You don’t have to learn any new tricks to implement security in leaf-and-spine fabrics. Use whatever worked for you in the past.

Need more details?

The Clos Fabrics Explained webinar contains a detailed explanation of numerous leaf-and-spine designs including:

  • Non-redundant layer-3 design;
  • Layer-3 design with multihomed servers;
  • Layer-2-only design without server-to-switch LAG (ideal for vSphere deployments);
  • Layer-2 design with server-to-switch LAG;
  • Mixed L2/L3 design with L3 forwarding on spine switches;
  • Mixed L2/L3 design with L3 forwarding on leaf switches.

If you need even more details, ExpertExpress might be the simplest alternative.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ivan
    Can you also cover how security device in a clos network be connected in your webinar.I dont find this in your leaf spine architecture webinar
    Replies
    1. The missing session covering external connectivity and load balancing ;) I plan to do it sometime in Spring 2017.
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