Creating a new fabric intent: flexible leaf/spine

Before you create a new flexible leaf/spine fabric intent, ensure you have done the following:

Note: This procedure can be used to create a fabric consiting of nodes that use SR Linux. For non-SR Linux nodes (such as 210 WBX nodes), you must create a fabric using an imported topology as described in Manual fabric topologies.
This procedure describes how to create a flexible leaf/spine fabric intent intended for deployment to real hardware.

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 Global configuration overrides.

  1. Click to open the main menu.
  2. In the main menu, select Fabric Intents.
  3. 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.
  4. Select the Flexible Leaf Spine template.
  5. Click the CREATE button.
  6. On the left-side panel, enter or select the basic parameters that define your intended fabric. These parameters are described in Required parameters for fabric intents.
    At the top of the left-side panel, the name of the template you selected in step 4 is displayed as the "Reference Template".
    Note: For Fabric Type, select Real.
    • Description
    • Prefix Naming
    • Region
    • Software Catalog/ID
    • Spine Node Type
    • Number of Spine Nodes
    • Leaf Node Type
    • Number of Leaf Nodes
    • Labels
    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 Optional parameters for fabric intents.
  7. 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.
  8. Click GENERATE FABRIC.
The system generates a recommended topology for your fabric based on the template you selected and the parameters you provided.

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.
Note:

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