By: Mary Chen, Product Marketing Manager
You simply can’t build or sustain a business requiring rapid innovation on an old network architecture. Traditional networks are complex and built on layers of upgrades with no concept of automation. Almost everything has to be done manually on each network device—and human error-induced outages are inevitable.
That’s where
Ruckus Campus Fabric can help.
How It Works
Ruckus Campus Fabric is a collection of distributed switches working together as a unified system that centralizes control and forwarding of traffic for the entire network fabric.
The two major components are:
1. Control bridge devices: These switches replace the traditional aggregation/core layer and control traffic forwarding for the entire network fabric.
2. Port extender devices: These access switches act as virtual line cards for the control bridge.
Auto Discovery and Provisioning
After power-up, the control bridge scans fabric-enabled ports for new port extender devices. When a new port extender device is discovered, the control bridge checks to see if it’s running the same version of software and performs an upgrade if there’s a version mismatch.
Subsequently, the port extender device is rebooted so it can run in port extender mode. It tells the control bridge how many ports it has, and each port becomes a virtual port of the control bridge. Then, the control bridge creates a logical interface for each port and associates a tag value with it to segregate traffic from each logical interface. Port extenders, in turn, use the information in the tags to forward traffic in the network.
After the fabric is formed, devices receive the software and configuration automatically from the network.
High-Availability Design
This multi-level resiliency design ensures that there’s no single point of failure. The control bridge stack units support a ring topology for hitless failover. If a switch within a stack fails, another switch will take over without disrupting network services.
Port extender devices are connected to the control bridge in a link aggregation group, which forms automatically to protect against link failures. The port extender devices can be connected in a chain, and each chained device can be connected into a link aggregation group. With all links active and traffic load-balanced, disruptions and performance degradation are avoided.
Network Integrity Maintenance
The entire network fabric runs from a unified control and forwarding plane, creating a resilient loop-free environment without the need for STP or complex Layer 3 protocols to avoid loops.
The fabric distributes uniform network services and software features across all devices within the fabric domain. Software images and configurations running on devices are automatically updated and kept in sync, with no risk of version or functionality mismatch.
Efficient Operation
As a network manager, you’ll benefit from a network fabric that delivers significant operational efficiencies
[INSERT LINK TO BECA CASE STUDY]. Through a single point of control, you simply provision network services once and simultaneously apply quality of service and security policies across the network.
Your new network will quickly become an accelerator of business innovation. To learn more, read the Ruckus Campus Fabric
white paper.
