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200-901 Practice Question: Deploying a new application that requires…
A company is deploying a new application that requires low-latency communication between servers in the same data center. The network team is designing a leaf-spine architecture. What is the primary advantage of this topology over a traditional three-tier design?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse 'fewer layers' with 'simpler redundancy' (Option A), but Cisco tests that leaf-spine actually increases the number of switches and cabling to achieve consistent low latency, not to reduce complexity or hardware count.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Consistent low latency and high bandwidth between any two devices.
In a leaf-spine architecture, every leaf switch connects to every spine switch, creating a full-mesh topology. This ensures that any server-to-server path traverses exactly one leaf and one spine switch, providing consistent, predictable low latency and high bandwidth regardless of which servers communicate. This is the primary advantage over a traditional three-tier design, where traffic may need to traverse multiple aggregation and core layers, introducing variable latency and potential bottlenecks.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Simpler redundancy with fewer layers.
Why it's wrong here
Leaf-spine delivers predictable any-to-any latency by keeping every leaf one hop from every spine, whereas three-tier aggregation and core layers add hops that vary with path. Fewer layers does reduce complexity, which is why it tempts, but that is a design side-effect, not the low-latency mechanism the scenario asks about.
- ✓
Consistent low latency and high bandwidth between any two devices.
Why this is correct
A leaf-spine fabric gives every leaf an equal-cost path to every spine, so any server pair traverses the same number of hops. This removes the aggregation and core tiers' variable hop counts and oversubscription, delivering the consistent low latency and high bandwidth the design requires.
- ✗
Easier to deploy with less cabling.
Why it's wrong here
Leaf-spine uses more cabling, not less, since every leaf connects to every spine, so deployment is not simplified. It tempts because fabric topologies can reduce configuration complexity, but the primary advantage here is consistent, predictable any-to-any latency via equal-cost paths, which the three-tier core-aggregation-access hierarchy cannot guarantee.
- ✗
Reduced number of required switch ports.
Why it's wrong here
Leaf-spine increases port consumption, because full mesh connectivity between every leaf and every spine multiplies uplinks. It tempts because consolidation is a common design goal, but the topology's purpose is bandwidth and latency predictability through equal-cost paths, not port reduction; three-tier designs often use fewer ports.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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