Hardware Distributed VXLAN

On a hardware distributed VXLAN network, all the leaf nodes function as Layer 3 VXLAN gateways in distributed mode and hardware switches function as NVE nodes. In this way, Layer 3 gateways connecting to network compute nodes can be deployed on nearest leaf nodes. Hardware distributed VXLAN can use the spine/leaf two-layer architecture or gateway/spine/leaf three-layer architecture, depending on whether border leaf switches are used as gateways. The spine/leaf two-layer architecture provides simple traffic model and is easy to maintain but difficult to expand, which is applicable to small- and medium-sized networks. The gateway/spine/leaf three-layer architecture features flexible networking and strong network scalability but has complex traffic paths and maintenance, which is applicable to medium- and large-sized networks.