Cisco FabricPath

Build a Highly Scalable, Agile Network

Cisco FabricPath is a Cisco NX-OS software innovation combining the plug-and-play simplicity of Ethernet with the reliability and scalability of Layer 3 routing.

Using FabricPath, you can build highly scalable Layer 2 multipath networks without the Spanning Tree Protocol. Such networks are particularly suitable for large virtualization deployments, private clouds, and high-performance computing (HPC) environments.

Critical Acclaim for FabricPath

eWEEK ranked FabricPath among its top products of 2010: "Cisco turned on yet another new feature in the Nexus 7000 platform that basically eliminates the ancient and universally deployed spanning tree protocol from network designs, thus enabling much larger Layer 2 networking domains."

When deployed across multiple Cisco Nexus chassis, FabricPath creates a flat data center switching fabric with:

• High switching capacity
• High cross-sectional bandwidth
• Low predictable latency

According to exclusive Network World tests, the FabricPath Switching System (FSS) improves business agility through workload flexibility. It also delivers operational efficiencies through:

• Network simplification
• Simplified provisioning
• Reduced power needs

Increase Agility, Availability, and More

The benefits of Cisco FabricPath include:

Scalability

• Minimal commands per switch ease configuration and operation
• Autodiscovery simplifies addition of new links and switches
• Provision additional network bandwidth without impacting network

Simplicity

• Design accommodates both small and large scale deployments
• Equal-cost multipathing across all available paths significantly increases cross-sectional bandwidth
• Network is scalable to more than 100 Tbps of switching capacity

Resiliency

• Multipathing over all links increases availability
• Eliminating Spanning Tree Protocol results in faster convergence
• Up to 16 aggregation layer switches minimize the impact of single-switch failure

Flexibility

• Multitopology networks based on customer application needs
• Supports one-, two-, or three-tier architectures
• VLAN extensibility across the data center