Referring to the exhibit. After a series of outages in an existing network, you are asked to analyze and provide recommendations for resiliency for the data center network shown in the exhibit…

Question

Exhibit

Options

• AConfigure ESI-LAG on the spines facing the leafs.
• BReplace the Virtual Chassis with ESI-LAG from the leafs facing the servers.
• CConfigure a Virtual Chassis between the spines.
• DReplace the Virtual Chassis with VRRP configured on the servers.

• B
  85% (11)
• C
  8% (1)
• D
  8% (1)

Explanation

Option B is correct because a Virtual Chassis at the leaf layer creates a management plane single point of failure - all member switches share one logical management plane (the primary Routing Engine controls the group), meaning a master RE failure can disrupt management of the entire virtual device. Replacing it with ESI-LAG (in an EVPN/VXLAN fabric) gives each leaf switch an independent management plane while still providing active-active multi-homing to servers, eliminating the SPOF.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A (ESI-LAG on spines facing leafs): This doesn't address the Virtual Chassis SPOF where it exists - at the leaf-to-server boundary - and spine-to-leaf links in a proper spine-leaf design don't typically require ESI-LAG.
• C (Virtual Chassis between the spines): This adds a management plane SPOF at the spine tier rather than removing one - the opposite of what's needed.
• D (VRRP on servers): VRRP is a first-hop gateway redundancy protocol configured on network devices, not a multi-homing solution; it does nothing to eliminate the shared management plane that the Virtual Chassis imposes.

Memory tip: Think of it this way - "Virtual Chassis = Virtually one point of failure." ESI-LAG keeps switches independent (separate management planes) while still appearing bonded to servers, so losing one switch never takes down a shared control plane.

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