Network fabric topology

In short: A network fabric is a network of switches in which every device is connected to every other over many equivalent paths, so the whole behaves like a single huge “fabric”.

In more detail: The term comes from the data centre. Instead of a hierarchy of core, distribution and access there is a flat network with many parallel links. The most common design is the leaf-spine architecture.

In Depth

• Many paths: if a link or a switch fails, traffic uses another path (redundancy).
• Equal latency: every server reaches every other with the same number of hops. That makes latency predictable.
• Load distribution: traffic is spread across all paths (ECMP), see load balancing.
• Easy to extend: you plug in more switches instead of rebuilding the network (scaling).
• Related: part of such networks is controlled by software (SDN) and divided with VLANs or overlay networks (VXLAN).

More in the data centre. An overview of all forms is under network topologies.

See also: full mesh topology, switch