In marketing terms fabric is mostly a product group or technical solution that works in a strictly defined environment. The term fabric has often to do with frame switching. A term and a solution used in storage networks and data center area. Fabric is a singly entity, a separate domain, a closed system in terms of integrity.
A new routing protocol has been added to the FRR router software. The routing protocol is called openfabric. Openfabric is a tech demo of a routing protocol, in fact there is already an RFC draft for openfabric, the seventh draft. Openfabric is a routing protocol especially and exclusively designed in mind for the leaf and spine network topology. It is build on top of IS-IS and uses SPF. IS-IS stripped down from all unneeded functions that are not needed for its target topology. Here is what the Abstract of the RFC draft says:
Abstract
Spine and leaf topologies are widely used in hyperscale and cloud
scale networks. In most of these networks, configuration is
automated, but difficult, and topology information is extracted
through broad based connections. Policy is often integrated into the
control plane, as well, making configuration, management, and
troubleshooting difficult. Openfabric is an adaptation of an
existing, widely deployed link state protocol, Intermediate System to
Intermediate System (IS-IS) that is designed to:
o Provide a full view of the topology from a single point in the
network to simplify operations
o Minimize configuration of each Intermediate System (IS) (also
called a router or switch) in the network
o Optimize the operation of IS-IS within a spine and leaf fabric to
enable scaling
This document begins with an overview of openfabric, including a
description of what may be removed from IS-IS to enable scaling. The
document then describes an optimized adjacency formation process; an
optimized flooding scheme; some thoughts on the operation of
openfabric, metrics, and aggregation; and finally a description of
the changes to the IS-IS protocol required for openfabric.
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