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Multi-Tier Fabrics: Network Designs for the Modern Data Center - BRKDCN-2999#

Cisco Live US 2025 (San Diego) digest Program Adjacent pick San Diego · 8–12 June 2025

Abstract

Marina Ferreira (Cisco)

  • Why: The back half of this session is genuinely relevant physical-DC content — super-spine and hyperscale plane designs, where 400G/800G is cost-effective, fixed vs. modular trade-offs, and routed fabrics for cloud-native applications. The front half is Clos 101, which the PM doesn't need; hence adjacent rather than core.
  • What: Fat-tree, Clos, and leaf/spine foundations extended to super-spine and hyperscale plane designs, cost-effective use of 400G/800G, fixed-vs-modular switch decisions, and a review of self-organized routed fabrics for cloud-native applications (from abstract only).
  • How: Design-pattern survey with cost/scale reasoning.
  • Where applicable: General data center design, vendor-neutral in principle; the routed-fabric segment connects to the same IP-underlay-for-cloud trend the PM sees in Kubernetes environments.