Data Centers Chapter 16

Question 1

Define Equal-Cost Multipath (ECPM)

Answer 1

substantially increase bandwidth by load-balancing traffic over multiple paths on spine and leaf architecture

Question 2

Define Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)

Answer 2

Open standard FHRP that provides high availability by taking multiple routers and grouping them together into a single virtual router with a single virtual ip address that clients use as a default gateway.

Question 3

Define Baseline Configuration Document

Answer 3

Reference record of all the hardware including portable computers, servers, switches, routers, etc and software currently in use in a data center. Also includes network topology and placement of devices in the organization.

Question 4

What is software-defined networking(SDN)?

Answer 4

Programming that allows a master controller to determine how network components will move traffic through the network, used in virtualization.

Question 5

Define High Availability (HA)

Answer 5

A collection of technologies and procedures that work together to keep an application available at all times.

Question 6

Define 3-Tiered Architecture

Answer 6

A traditional type of data center architecture consisting of:

access layer - provides connectivity between data center and users
distribution layer - that interconnects racks of servers
core layer - ties to gather all the switches at the distribution layer and acts as the point of connection to the external connections including the internet.

Question 7

Define Distribution Layer

Answer 7

Interconnects racks of servers, Modern data center design leverages advances in virtualization and software defined networking to replace the distribution layer, with a virtualized mesh network

Question 8

Define North-South Traffic

Answer 8

Data traffic entering and leaving the data center. Network devices seen in north-south traffic include, edge routers, edge firewalls, and load balancers.

Question 9

Define East-West Traffic

Answer 9

Any network activity that moves between systems within the data center. Network devices seen in east-west traffic include, internal routers, internal firewalls, internal switches.

Question 10

Define Storage Area Network (SAN)

Answer 10

Server that can take a pool of hard disks and present them over the network as any number of logical disks.

Question 11

Define Fiber Channel (FC)

Answer 11

A self contained high speed storage environment with its own storage arrays, cables, protocols, cables and switches. FC is a critical part of storage area networks.

Question 12

Define Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI)

Answer 12

Protocol that enables the SCSI command set to be transported over a TCP-IP network from a client to an iSCSI based storage system. Popular with storage area network systems

Question 13

Define Spine-and-Leaf Architecture

Answer 13

Data center architecture in which every spine switch connects to every leaf switch in a 2-tiered mesh network. Mesh network removes the need for dedicated connections between the spine back bone switches, because traffic moves seamlessly from spine to leaf to spine, regardless of how many spine or leaf switches are on the network.

Question 14

Define Load Balancing

Answer 14

Process of taking several servers and making them look like a single server, spreading processing and supporting bandwidth needs.

Question 15

Define First Top Redundancy Protocol (FHRP)

Answer 15

Method of ensuring high data availability by taking multiple routers and grouping them into a virtual router with a single virtual IP address that clients use as a default gateway. Common FHRP protocols are the open standard Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), Cisco’s proprietary Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) and Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)

Question 16

Define Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP)

Answer 16

Cisco Proprietary version of an FHRP that provides increased data availability through redundancy.

Question 17

Define Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GSBP)

Answer 17

Cisco Proprietary version of an FHRP that provides increased data availability through redundancy AND load balancing.

Question 18

Define Intermediate Distribution Frame (IDF)

Answer 18

Room where all the horizontal runs from all the work areas on a given floor in a building come together.

Question 19

Define Network Operations Center (NOC)

Answer 19

Centralized location for techs and administrators to manage all aspects of a network.

Question 20

Define Main Distribution Frame (MDF)

Answer 20

Room in a building that stores the Demarc telephone cross connects and lan cross connects.

Question 21

Define Logical Address Diagarm

Answer 21

Document that shows the broadcast domains and individual ip address for all devices on the network. Only critical switches and router are shown.

Question 22

Define Wiring Diagram

Answer 22

Document also known as a wiring schematic that usually consists of multiple pages and that shows the following: how the wires in a network connect to switches and other nodes, what types of cables are used, and how patch panels are configured. It usually includes details about each cable run.

Question 23

Define Site Survey

Answer 23

Process that informs wireless network design by mapping out the physical space to identify requirements, obstacles, and sources of interference.