May 18, 2020—

Clos Topology For Data Center Networks – Part 1: An Interview with Dinesh Dutt

Describing the Leaf-Spine Clos data center architecture, its characteristics and advantages

By: Heather Morris


This Podcast and Video was originally posted on Silvano Gai’s blog here.

In this podcast, I interview Dinesh Dutt, a well known engineer and author, and ask him to explain the application of the Clos topology to data center networks, used in enterprises and clouds.

This first short video is an introduction to the topic.


The following podcast goes into more details about Clos networks and compares them with access-aggregation-core networks.


These two pictures, from Dinesh book, Cloud Native Data Center Networking may be helpful in following the discussion.


Access-Aggregation-Core network

Access-Aggregation-Core Network


Simple Clos Network

Access-Aggregation-Core Network


Dinesh book Cloud Native Data Center Networking published by O’Reilly in 2020, ISBN 9781492045601 has a lot of material on the topic.

Dinesh Book Cover


My book has a brief description of Clos in chapter 2.

Book Cover

You can read an independent review of the book here.

The book was also listed in The Top 10 Best Cloud Storage Books You Need to Read in 2020.

Don’t Forget that Pearson/Addison-Wesley has a special offer on my latest book. To save 35% on the book or eBook go to the informit website and use code FUTUREPROOF during checkout to apply the discount. Offer expires December 31, 2020

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