The NOC asks whether enabling VXLAN means the civic fabric can drop underlay routing between leaves and spines. What is the correct separation of roles?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
VXLAN is the tunnel stickers on the trucks; underlay routing is still the road map. Turn off the roads and the stickers go nowhere. Overlay and underlay are partners, not substitutes.
Full Explanation
VXLAN is an overlay that still depends on underlay IP routing for VTEP reachability; enabling VXLAN does not let the civic fabric drop leaf-spine underlay routing. VNIs do not flood reachability without IP in place of underlay routing. VXLAN does not demote spines to VLAN-tag switches that allow BGP removal. VXLAN does not require STP on the underlay making routing optional. Exam caveat: Keep overlay and underlay responsibilities distinct in design reviews and outages. Operational check: Traceroute between VTEP loopbacks and confirm underlay routing; then validate VXLAN overlays separately. In civic data-center operations, record the expected CLI or collector evidence for this concept so the next on-call engineer can validate fabric behavior without re-deriving the design under incident pressure. In civic data-center operations, record the expected CLI or collector evidence for this concept so the next on-call engineer can validate fabric behavior without re-deriving the design under incident pressure. In civic data-center operations, record the expected CLI or collector evidence for this concept so the next on-call engineer can validate fabric behavior without re-deriving the design under incident pressure.