Lab Guide 1 - Juniper

Racks

Racks are a design construct where the details of how top-of-rack switches connect within the infrastructure are defined. This includes redundancy models and how servers and other devices connect with the fabric. Apstra includes several predefined Rack Types with various characteristics in-place. Feel free to explore different Rack models by navigating to Design>Rack Types in the menu ribbon on the left side of the server UI. Click the name of these Rack Types to see their details. You will define two rack types in these exercises. One is a single switch with a single-homed server. And the other is a redundant pair and has a combination of dual-connected and single-connected servers. Let’s proceed to creating them now.

Create Single-Homed Rack Type

  1. Navigate to Design > Rack Types and click Create Rack Type.

    Juniper_Apstra_Design_Rack_Types.png

  2. In the Summary section, enter/select values as shown in the table below.

    Table 1. Table Single-Homed Rack Type Summary Values
    Summary Value

    Name

    apstra-single

    Fabric connectivity design

    L3 Clos

  3. In the Leafs section, enter/select values as shown in the table below. Leave other default values as they are.

    Table 2. Table Single-Homed Rack Type Leafs Values
    Leafs Values

    Name

    apstra-single

    Logical Device

    virtual-7x10-1

    Access Switches are supported with Juniper devices only.
  4. Click Generic Systems, click Add new generic system group, and enter/select values as shown in the table below. Leave other default values as they are. Notice that as you enter information the topology preview on the right changes accordingly.

    Table 3. Table Single-Homed Rack Type Servers Values
    Servers Values

    Name

    single-server

    Generic system count

    1

    Logical Device

    AOS-1x10-1

    Logical links

    click Add logical link

    Name

    single-link

    Switch

    apstra-single

  5. Click Create to create the rack type, add it to the global catalog and return to the list view.

To see rack details, click its name in the list. This is how your completed rack should appear:

rack-single_completed.png

Create Dual-Homed Rack Type

  1. Click Create Rack Type.

  2. In the Summary section, enter/select values as shown in the table below.

    Table 4. Table Dual-Homed Rack Type Summary Values
    Summary Value

    Name

    apstra-esi

    Fabric connectivity design

    L3 Clos

  3. In the Leafs section, enter/select values as shown in the table below. Leave other default values as they are.

    Table 5. Table Dual-Homed Rack Type Leafs Values
    Leafs Value

    Name

    apstra-esi

    Leaf Logical Device

    virtual-7x10-1

    Redundancy Protocol

    esi

  4. Click Generic Systems, click Add new generic system group, and enter/select values as shown in the table below. Leave other default values as they are. The logical device you’ll choose here is a predefined one that ships with Apstra. These generic systems represent the servers being attached to the rack.

    Table 6. Table Dual-Homed Rack Type Servers Values
    Servers Values

    Name

    dual-server

    Generic System Count

    1

    Logical Device

    AOS-2x10-1

    First Link

    click Add logical link

    Name

    dual-link

    Switch

    apstra-esi

    Attachment type

    Dual-Homed

    LAG Mode

    LACP (Active)

    Second Server

    click Add new generic system group

    Name

    single-server-1

    Server Count

    1

    Logical Device

    AOS-1x10-1

    Second Link

    click Add logical link

    Name

    single-link

    Switch

    apstra-esi

    Attachment Type

    Single-Homed

    Peer Switch

    First

    LAG Mode

    No LAG

    Third Server

    click Add new generic system group

    Name

    single-server-2

    Server Count

    1

    Logical Device

    AOS-1x10-1

    Third Link

    click Add logical link

    Name

    single-link

    Switch

    apstra-esi

    Attachment Type

    Single-Homed

    Peer Leaf

    Second

    LAG Mode

    No LAG

  5. Click Create to create the rack type, add it to the global catalog and return to the list view.

To see rack details, click its name in the list. This is how your completed rack should appear:

esi_rack-dual_completed.png