Juniper QFabric QFX3008-I, Manual, Page: 33 / 472

Understanding the QFabric System Hardware Architecture
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QFabric System Hardware Architecture Overview on page 7
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QFabric System Features on page 9
QFabric System Hardware Architecture Overview
The QFabric system is a single layer networking tier that connects servers and storage
devices to one another across a high-speed, unified core fabric. You can view the QFabric
system as a single, extremely large, nonblocking, high-performance Layer 2 and Layer 3
switching system. The reason you can consider the QFabric system as a single system
is that the Director software running on the Director group allows the main QFabric system
administrator to access and configure every device and port in the QFabric system from
a single location. Although you configure the system as a single entity, the fabric contains
four major hardware components. The hardware components can be chassis-based,
group-based, or a hybrid of the two. As a result, it is important to understand the four
types of generic QFabric system components and their functions, regardless of which
hardware environment you decide to implement. A representation of these components
is shown in
Figure 3 on page 7 .
Figure 3: QFabric System Hardware Architecture
Virtual Chassis
(control plane)
Interconnect devices
Node devices
Director devices
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7 Copyright © 2012, Juniper Networks, Inc.
Chapter 1: QFX3000 QFabric Switch Overview