Adding a second type of hardware for leaf nodes

When you create a fabric intent, you must select one type of hardware for all leaf nodes within the fabric.

The Fabric Services System supports fabric designs that use two different types of hardware for leaf nodes; but such fabric intents must be designed in two stages using a feature called Pods.

In the Fabric Services System, a Pod represents a subset of your fabric that uses a different hardware type for its leaf nodes than the original, non-Pod subset. First, you must create and deploy a fabric intent for the non-Pod subset of your fabric. Then you must create a new version of the same fabric intent, add the Pod, and configure this section which can use a different hardware type for its leaf nodes.

The system currently supports adding a single Pod to each fabric intent, which allows for up to two hardware types for leaf nodes within a single fabric.

  1. Before you begin creating the fabric intent, divide your intended fabric design into two groups of spine and leaf nodes, each of which uses one hardware type for all of its leaf nodes.
  2. Create the initial fabric intent to represent the first of those groups as described in Creating a new fabric intent: flexible leaf/spine. Select the appropriate number of leaf nodes and their hardware type for the initial group.
    Note: If you attempt to add a Pod as part of the initial fabric intent, the system displays an error message indicating that Pods are not supported for Version 1.0 of any fabric intent.
  3. Deploy the initial fabric intent.
  4. Create a new version of the same fabric intent.
  5. In this new version, select the appropriate number of spine nodes for the second group.
  6. Enable the Add Pod option. This indicates that you are now configuring the second group within the fabric that uses its own hardware type for leaf nodes.
  7. Select the appropriate number of leaf nodes and their hardware type for the second group.
  8. Complete and deploy this new version of the fabric intent.
The deployed fabric now includes two separate sets of leaf nodes, each with its own hardware types.
Note: After you set the Add Pod option to False (by setting the toggle to the disabled position), you can only make changes to the number of devices and the device type for the previously deployed pod.