Additional Resources

Although I’ve tried to provide references on each page, they can become lost pretty easily. For that reason, this page includes references for books, feature guides, solutions guides, videos, and blogs that might be helpful when studying for the JNCIP-DC exam.

Data Center Deployment or Management

The QFX5100 Series book from O’Reilly is a great resources for this section of the blueprint. Check chapters 6 (Network Automation) and 9 (Network Analytics) specifically.

A good blog post for ZTP is this one from NextHeader. It includes a topology diagram, switch outputs, configuration of an ISC DHCP Server on Ubuntu, and pcaps.

As you’ll see throughout this list of resources, the blog over at https://jncie.tech/ has a blog on ZTP: JNCIE TECH - Zero Touch Provisioning.

Finally, there is an older Juniper Day One book on Deploying Zero Touch Provisioning. It’s focused on the EX and SRX Series, but it should still serve as a useful reference.

Multichassis LAG

For MC-LAG, check out the MX Series book from O’Reilly. Chapter 9 is all about Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation.

This will cover you on the MX side, but there’s still MC-LAG on the QFX to worry about. It’s very similar, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Another great resource is the official Multichassis Link Aggregation Feature Guide.

The following list of blogs can be useful, too:

Layer 2 Fabrics

For Virtual Chassis, a great resource is Understanding Mixed EX Series and QFX Series Virtual Chassis. This will help you understand some limitations of mixed mode Virtual Chassis with EX and QFX Series switches. For configuration, check Configuring a QFX Virtual Chassis. For a more general Virtual Chassis read, check out the Junos Enterprise Switching book, specifically Chapter 4, EX Virtual Chassis. Finally, the Day One: EX Series Up and Running book has two chapters on Virtual Chassis - Chapters 4 and 5.

For Virtual Chassis Fabric, you can read the QFX5100 Series book. Chapter 5 is dedicated to Virtual Chassis Fabric. Another good reference is the Day One: Data Center Fundamentals book. Chapter 5 covers fabric architectures, including Multichassis LAG, Virtual Chassis, and Virtual Chassi Fabric. Finally, the Virtual Chassis Fabric Feature Guide is a great resource for all things Virtual Chassis Fabric. For a dive into best practices, check the Best Practices: Virtual Chassis Best Practices Guide.

For blogs, https://jncie.tech comes in again with JNCIE TECH - VCF.

Layer 3 Fabrics

This one is a potentially large topic, and there are a number of resources for it, including white papers, RFCs, and books.

First, there is the Clos IP Fabrics with QFX5100 Switches white paper. This is all about the layer 3 underlay with a strong focus on BGP. Both eBGP and iBGP (with route reflectors) are covered.

Next, in terms of books, there is the QFX5100 Series book. Chapter 7 is all about IP fabrics, although its content seems to be largely the same as the afore-mentioned white paper. Another good reference is Chapter 6 of the Day One: Data Center Fundamentals book. This chapter is, again, completely dedicated to Layer 3 fabrics.

Note

For a much more in-depth treatise on BGP in the Data Center, see the book of the same name. This book focuses on Free-Range Routing (FRR, the routing software used in Cumulus), but 100% of the theory applies here.

Finally, there is informational RFC 7938, Use of BGP for Routing in Large-Scale Data Centers.

If blogs are more your speed, the only one I’ve found that seems appropriately scoped for this topic only is JNCIE TECH - IP Fabric. Juniper QFX, IP-Fabric and VXLAN – Part may be helpful as well, but it also includes some multicast configuration, which I generally lump in with VxLAN.

VxLAN

This is a massive topic. The list of resources here will intentionally ignore EVPN as that is listed as a separate topic in the syllabus.

For books, the QFX5100 Series is again a great resource. Chapter 8 covers Overlay Networking. Day One: Data Center Fundamentals covers VxLAN in Chapter 7, Overlay Networking.

For blogs, we have a few to choose from:

These next two are from Cumulus, but they should still help explain gateway placement options:

The next set are specific to Cisco, but if you’re familiar with NX-OS, you might find them helpful. They’re also good for general theory.

If videos are your speed, here are a list of YouTube resources:

EVPN VxLAN Signaling

For books, we start with the Day One: Data Center Fundamentals book, which covers EVPN in Chapter 9. From there, we can look to the QFX10000 Series book. Chapter 6 covers Ethernet VPN. We also have the This Week: Data Center Deployment EVPN/VXLAN book.

Note

EVPN in the Data Center is a great book for learning about EVPN. Its primary focus is FRR, but all of the theory and concepts apply to Junos as well.

The following guides will also be useful:

For blog posts, we again have a large number of posts to dive into:

Next, some Cisco Nexus-centric blog posts:

Some videos from YouTube that might help:

Data Center Interconnect

DCI is a pretty big topic with quite a few ways to implement. Most of the materials I’ve seen so far seem to focus on straight VxLAN EVPN connectivity. However, there’s at least one blog post from JNCIE TECH (listed below) that covers EVPN stitching.

Books that may be useful:

Note

Two of the books above are on MPLS basics. For better or worse, it looks like a portion of this track relies on MPLS. I’ve added the two references references above in case you are coming directly from the Enterprise track, which is a prerequisite for the DC track but has no MPLS coverage.

Blog posts:

Videos from YouTube:

Data Center Architecture and Security

This seems to be a pretty nebulous topic. The only items in the syllabus that are listed seem security-related, so I’m just going to focus on that. First, a list of Day One books:

Next, the MX Series book has an entire chapter dedicated to Routing Engine Protection and DDoS Prevention (Chapter 4).

Finally, a couple of blog posts:

Miscellaneous

Some topics that are probably important but don’t seem to be called out explicitly in the syllabus: