We are building a new network backbone for Medialine Group. The first big milestone is done: within one week, we deployed 192x 100G and 384x 10/25G ports.
Sites
The backbone connects three Frankfurt locations in a redundant ring:
- Equinix FR5 (rack)
- Telehouse Frankfurt (rack)
- Equinix FR2 (new cage)
ITENOS Frankfurt 1 is currently still the main site. In the future it will only be used for backups, and until then it is connected with 2x 100G via redundant cross-connects.
Transport
The data centers are connected by DWDM lines on newly constructed darkfibre routes. Between the sites we run 2x 100G over redundant paths with 1310nm optics. In total, the transport layer consists of 16 passive DWDM systems with 40 channels each.
An important step during the setup phase was running OTDR measurements on every route to get the lines up and running before putting the DWDM service on top of them. It paid off, as the carrier protocols didn’t show the problems we found: OTDR Measurements - Never Trust the Carrier Protocol Alone.
Switching
- Spines and edge leafs: Arista
- Server leafs: Dell switches running SONiC
The old VRRP pairs of EX4300 switches are replaced by the edge leafs, using EVPN with anycast gateway. The old Juniper backbone will be partly dismantled, and its core routers will be migrated onto the new Arista leafs.
Automation
The configuration is built entirely from NetBox, which stays the single source of truth:
- Arista: NetBox → Ansible → CloudVision
- SONiC: NetBox → REST API of a dedicated SONiC manager
Rolling out another switch or link means changing the model in NetBox instead of editing configs by hand.
What’s Next
- Connecting the Proxmox cluster to the new platform
- Migrating the Juniper core routers onto the Arista leafs
- Moving the remaining workloads off the old EX4300 pairs