The municipal airport IT board asks whether a software-defined data center still needs physical switches. What should the candidate identify?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Software-defined does not mean the airport unplugs every switch. The underlay still forwards encapsulated packets. The overlay—the virtual networks and services—is what becomes software.
Full Explanation
A software-defined data center still uses a physical underlay that forwards encapsulated packets while overlay services are software-defined. Municipal airport IT should identify that software-defined networking does not unplug ToR and core switches; those devices carry Geneve or VLAN traffic between transport nodes while logical segments and services live in the overlay. Eliminating the physical network entirely is incorrect and would strand tunnels between hosts. Replacing every switch with Workspace ONE Access confuses identity access with packet forwarding. Moving all packets onto a public SaaS email tenant is unrelated to underlay design. Exam caveat: underlay quality still matters—MTU for encapsulation overhead, IP reachability between VTEPs, and sufficient bandwidth—even though tenant topology is no longer redesigned for every app. Operational check: traceroute or validate VTEP-to-VTEP IP connectivity and increased MTU on the underlay while confirming VMs communicate on overlay segments that are not one-to-one with those underlay VLANs. Keep municipal naming and change tickets aligned with the software objects so civic audits can trace intent. Prefer verifying with a non-production agency workload before promoting the same pattern to life-safety systems.