Creating a new fabric intent: flexible leaf/spine
Before you create a new flexible leaf/spine fabric intent, ensure you have done the following:
- Created a region to which the fabric can belong; see Creating a region.
- Verified that the intended version of the SR Linux software is available in the system's software catalog, as described in Viewing software and image catalogs.
A fabric intent normally allows you to select a single hardware type for all leaf nodes within a fabric intent. However, the Fabric Services System supports the inclusion of a second set of leaf hardware with some additional steps. For the procedure to create such a fabric intent, see Adding a second type of hardware for leaf nodes.
A fabric intent creates configuration files for all of the participating nodes based on the parameters you select for the fabric intent itself, and by default these configurations is the same for all participating nodes. To customize the configuration for one or more nodes within the fabric intent, you can create one or more configuration overrides. This process is described in Configuration overrides.
-
Click
to open the
main menu.
- In the main menu, select Fabric Intents.
-
Click the + CREATE A FABRIC INTENT button.
Templates are displayed in a grid view by default. To switch to the list view, select
in the template selection screen. Click 
to return to the grid view. - Select the Flexible Leaf Spine template.
- Click the CREATE button.
-
On the left-side panel, enter or select the basic parameters that define your intended
fabric as described in Basic parameters for flexible leaf/spine fabric intent
At the top of the left-side panel, the name of the template you selected in step 4 is displayed as the "Reference Template".
Table 1. Basic parameters for flexible leaf/spine fabric intent Parameter
Description
Fabric Type
Select Real. This creates a fabric intent intended for deployment to real-world hardware.
The Digital Sandbox option is used to create a virtual fabric to test and validating prospective designs. This option is described in Digital Sandbox.
Fabric Intent Name
Enter the name that identifies this fabric.
Description
Optionally, add information to describe the fabric intent.
Prefix Naming
Enter a string to be added at the beginning of the name of every node in the fabric intent. The rest of the node name is automatically generated.
For example, enter "A01" here to assign nodes names such as "A01-leaf-1" and "A01-spine-1".
The Prefix Naming string must be unique to each fabric.
Region
In the drop-down list, click an already-created region from the list. This identifies the region that contains the new fabric intent.
To create or edit a region now, click the regions icon (
) to navigate to the
Regions page. This exits the fabric intent creation procedure. You
must begin fabric intent creation again after creating the new region.Software Catalog/Image ID
Select the version of SR Linux software to load onto all of the nodes in the new fabric.
Currently supported:
- SR Linux 22.6.1-281
- SR Linux 22.6.2-24
Spine Node Type
Select a supported type of hardware to act as a spine node.
Number of Spine Nodes
Specify the number of devices of the specified type to act as spine nodes.
Leaf Node Type
Select a supported type of hardware to act as a leaf node.
Note: When initially creating a fabric intent, you can only choose one hardware type to be used for all leaf nodes in the fabric. To use a second hardware type for some leaf nodes, you must first deploy the initial fabric intent and then create a new version that includes a pod. The pod represent a second set of leaf nodes within the same fabric which can be of a different hardware type. For more information about configuring fabrics with multiple hardware types for its leaves, see Adding a second type of hardware for leaf nodes.Number of Leaf Nodes
Specify the number of devices of the specified type to act as leaf nodes.
Labels
This area is disabled when creating the initial fabric intent.
Deploy Trigger Percentage
The minimum percentage of nodes within the fabric intent that must be physically installed before the system allows you to deploy the intent to hardware.
For all real fabrics, this value is fixed at 0%.
For all Digital Sandbox fabrics, this value is fixed at 100%.
There are more, optional parameters you can use to fine-tune the fabric intent design at this stage. For more information about these parameters, see Appendix: Fabric intent parameters.
-
Click
to save the
fabric intent. When you save the fabric intent, the system:
- updates the state of the fabric intent to Created.
- updates the version number of the fabric intent to 1.0.
- enables the
GENERATE FABRIC button.
-
Click
GENERATE FABRIC.
When generating the topology, the system also generates the various cable connections and the individual node configurations required to support this fabric topology.
During fabric generation, the fabric intent state advances through the following:
- Cable Map in Progress
- Config Generation in Progress
- Config Generation Done
After the generation is complete, the resulting topology displays in the main area of the Fabric Intents page.
Proceed to any of the following:
- Optionally, explore the fabric intent in the UI.
- Optionally, view the fabric intent as code.
- Optionally, add labels to objects in the fabric intent.
- If possible, associate planned nodes in the fabric intent with real-world hardware.
- Begin the deployment process by adding the fabric intent to the region's deployment pipeline. From the pipeline you can then deploy the fabric intent.
The following configurations are not supported on the initial version of a fabric intent. For the following configurations, you must first save and deploy Version 1.0 of the fabric intent, and then create a new version of the intent in which the following actions are permitted:
- configure LAGs
- configure breakout ports