RFC’s

General Internet Protocols and OSI Model

  1. RFC 8200 – Defines IPv6, the primary internet protocol for the network layer, addressing scalability for modern networks.
  2. RFC 791 – The original specification of the Internet Protocol (IP), critical for packet-switched networks.
  3. RFC 8446 – TLS 1.3, a security protocol used for encrypted communications over networks.
  4. RFC 7540 – Defines HTTP/2, improving web communication performance by allowing multiple streams over a single connection.
  5. RFC 793 – TCP protocol, providing reliable, ordered delivery of data across networks.

Routing Protocols

  1. RFC 2328 – Defines OSPF Version 2, a widely-used intra-domain link-state routing protocol.
  2. RFC 4271 – Border Gateway Protocol (BGP-4), essential for routing between autonomous systems on the internet.
  3. RFC 3107 – Describes how BGP can carry MPLS labels, facilitating large-scale routing in data centers.
  4. RFC 6126 – Babel Routing Protocol, optimized for hybrid networks including wired and wireless links.

Spine-Leaf Topologies and Data Center Protocols

  1. RFC 7938 – Explains how BGP is used for routing in large-scale, Clos-based (Spine-Leaf) data centers, handling equal-cost multipathing and load balancing.
  2. RFC 8365 – EVPN with VXLAN, crucial for Layer 2/3 virtualization in data centers, supporting multi-tenant architectures and scalability.
  3. RFC 5305 – IS-IS Extensions for Traffic Engineering, optimized for Spine-Leaf topologies by minimizing control plane overhead.
  4. RFC 6820 – Multiprotocol BGP extensions, supporting diverse address families (IPv4, IPv6, multicast) for scalable routing.

MPLS and Traffic Engineering

  1. RFC 3031 – MPLS Architecture, allowing for efficient, scalable routing across Layer 2.5 (between Layer 2 and Layer 3).
  2. RFC 7432 – Ethernet VPN (EVPN), defines how to implement virtualized networking in data centers with MPLS or VXLAN.
  3. RFC 8402 – Segment Routing, a modern protocol for simplifying routing and optimizing traffic engineering.

These RFCs collectively define the foundation of modern internet communication, routing in large-scale data centers, and virtualized, scalable Spine-Leaf architectures. They cover critical protocols for IPv6, BGP, MPLS, and various optimizations for traffic management and virtualization.

less common protocols or experimental RFCs that could be relevant. For example:

Segment Routing: This technology is increasingly important in modern data center and WAN networks, and is supported by RFCs like:
    RFC 8402 – Segment Routing Architecture: Defines the foundational principles of segment routing, which simplifies and optimizes the routing process by encoding paths at the source.

SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6): An extension of segment routing for IPv6 networks.
    RFC 8986 – SRv6 Network Programming: Provides a framework for applying segment routing in IPv6 networks, widely adopted in large-scale data center networks.

Multicast Enhancements: Protocols like PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) and related multicast routing optimizations may be important in some specific use cases within data centers.
    RFC 7761 – PIM-SM (Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode): Details the sparse mode of multicast, optimizing group-based communication.

Leaf-Spine Traffic Engineering: If you're implementing complex traffic engineering or service-chaining scenarios within a spine-leaf architecture, you may need additional MPLS and SR extensions.
    RFC 8403 – Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (SR-TE) Use Cases: Provides detailed use cases for traffic engineering using segment routing in large-scale, spine-leaf network environments.