Building Data Centers with VXLAN GP EVPN ─ A Cisco NX-OS Perspective

This is the only complete guide and deployment reference for building flexible data center network fabrics with VXLAN and BGP-EVPN technologies. Authored by world-renowned Cisco experts and CiscoLive speakers, it addresses everything from standards and protocols to functions, configuration, operations, management, and troubleshooting.

Cisco's experts begin by assessing the challenges now driving radical change in the data center. They show how data center fabrics are evolving, and present a detailed discussion of Cisco's advanced Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). Next, they introduce key switch roles, essential data center network fabric terminology, and key concepts such as network attributes, control planes, and data plane encapsulation.

Building on this foundation, they drill down into crucial details, including overlay forwarding semantics, multi-tenancy, and network fabric interconnection techniques. You'll find detailed packet flows for forwarding IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, including routing and bridging scenarios; as well as optimizations built atop VXLAN and BGP-EVPN to maximize efficiency.

The authors conclude with a full section on fabric management, addressing Power-On Auto Provisioning (POAP) and other opportunities to simplify, automate, and orchestrate advanced data center networks.

Lukas Krattiger, CCIE No. 21921 (Routing/Switching and Data Center), is principal engineer, Technical Marketing, with more than 15 years of experience in data center, Internet, and application networks. Within Cisco, he specializes in data center switching, overlay architectures, and solutions across platforms. Lukas is a double-CCIE (R&S and Data Center) with several other industry certifications and has participated in various technology leadership and advisory groups. Prior to joining Cisco, Lukas was a senior network engineer with System Integrators and Service Providers, where he was responsible for data center and Internet networks. Since joining Cisco, he has covered various technologies within the data center as well as enterprise networks portfolio, and he has built foundational solutions for customers and partners. He is from Switzerland and currently lives in California with his wife and one wonderful daughter. He can be found on Twitter at @ccie21921.

Shyam Kapadia is a principal engineer in the Data Center Group at Cisco Systems. With more than a decade of experience in the networking industry, Shyam holds more than 30 patents and has coauthored the book Using TRILL, FabricPath, and VXLAN: Designing MSDC with Overlays. In his 10 years at Cisco, Shyam has worked on a number of products, including the Catalyst and Nexus families of switches, with special emphasis on end-to-end data center solutions, including automation and orchestration. He holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree from the University of Southern California in the field of computer science. Over the past 15 years, Shyam has been the Program Chair for the Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE). He lives in California with his wife, enjoys watching international movies, and is passionate about sports including cricket, basketball, and football.

David Jansen, CCIE No. 5952 (Routing/Switching), is a distinguished systems engineer (DSE) for Cisco, specializing in data center, campus, branch/WAN, and cloud architectures. He has 20 years of experience in the industry and has earned certifications from Novell, VMware, Microsoft, TOGAF, and Cisco. His focus is working with global enterprise customers to address their challenges with comprehensive end-to-end data center, enterprise, WAN/Internet, and cloud architectures. David has been with Cisco for more than 19 years; for the last 4 years or so as a DSE, he has gained unique experiences in building next generation data center solutions. David has a bachelor's degree in computer science engineering from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in adult education from Central Michigan University.