Fabric Test Automation Suite 2.3 adds EVPN-VXLAN, MCLAG and ECMP eBGP tests

Fabric Test Automation Suite (FTAS) 2.3 adds new validation scenarios for SONiC deployments focused on data center interconnect features, including EVPN-VXLAN, MCLAG, and ECMP scalability with eBGP. For enterprise IT and security leaders, the update expands pre-deployment testing coverage around failover, routing scale, and redundancy.

Research Overview

FTAS is presented as a test suite intended to assess SONiC readiness for deployment, with updates aligned to new SONiC releases and customer input. FTAS 2.3 is positioned as a release that expands test coverage for data center interconnect architectures.

The new release includes test cases tied to DCI-related networking components, including EVPN-VXLAN overlays, MCLAG redundancy scenarios, and ECMP scalability under eBGP. The article describes specific scenarios and stated capacity targets for those areas.

Key Findings

FTAS 2.3 introduces additional VXLAN EVPN scenarios covering BGP-EVPN-VXLAN configuration and verification, known unicast and BUM testing, and link or router failure simulations across multiple interface approaches. The coverage includes RIF, SVI, and RPCH-based variations.

The release also expands MCLAG test coverage for both L2 and L3 use cases, including steady state and several failure or reboot conditions. For routing scale, FTAS 2.3 extends ECMP scalability tests to add support for eBGP with multiple stated scaling combinations.

Technical Breakdown

The article describes DCI as an integration involving EVPN, VXLAN, and MCLAG, with EVPN managing control plane operations and VXLAN extending Layer 2 connectivity over Layer 3. In the FTAS 2.3 context, the EVPN-VXLAN portion is expressed through scenarios for BGP-EVPN-VXLAN configuration and verification, known unicast and BUM traffic behavior, and resiliency during topology events.

For EVPN-VXLAN, the described scenario list includes EVPN VXLAN with known unicast and BUM traffic using eBGP with RIF and with SVI, plus link events and router failure cases for known unicast traffic using RIF, SVI, and RPCH. The list also includes symmetric IRB and asymmetric IRB scenarios with both eBGP and iBGP variations, stated as part of FTAS 2.3 coverage.

Product Update

In the MCLAG section, FTAS 2.3 is described as covering MCLAG L2 and L3 validation scenarios based on customer deployments. The L2 set includes steady state validation with portchannel and VLAN on the peer link, member link down, peer link down, and active or standby reboot cases.

The L3 set includes MC-LAG L3 validation using portchannel configuration, bring down a member link of Spine1, MC-LAG keepalive link down, and active or standby reboot cases. For ECMP, the article states that FTAS 2.3 adds eBGP support to ECMP scalability, and lists capacity scenarios including scaling to multiple ECMP path counts and eBGP route counts.

Operational Impact

The article ties FTAS 2.3 coverage to pre-deployment validation for data center interconnect use cases by testing EVPN, VXLAN, MCLAG, and ECMP scenarios before production rollout. It frames the added test cases as a way to validate scalability, redundancy, and resilience in network conditions described by the scenarios.

Beyond configuration verification, the release descriptions include simulated link events and router failure behaviors for EVPN-VXLAN and reboot or link-down behaviors for MCLAG. For ECMP, the described operational focus is validation of higher path and route counts when eBGP is present.

FTAS 2.3 expands SONiC pre-deployment test coverage with new VXLAN EVPN scenario sets, additional L2 and L3 MCLAG cases, and ECMP scalability testing that adds eBGP with stated path and route scaling combinations. Blog Signals brief is a fact-based summary of the vendor blog.