User guide

Automatic Fabric Overview Configuring Automatic Fabric
page 14-8 OmniSwitch AOS Release 7 Switch Management Guide March 2015
Automatic Fabric Overview
The Automatic Fabric feature reduces the burden of configuration on the administrator. Dynamic
recognition of the neighboring elements will allow for quick, out-of-the-box configuration and reduced
administrative overhead. Automatic Fabric is used to dynamically discover and configure a switch for the
LACP, SPB, MVRP, and IP protocols and is supported when the switch is operating in standalone or
Virtual Chassis (VC) mode.
Some of the key benefits provided by Automatic Fabric include the following:
• Automatic discovery reduces administrative overhead.
• Automatic discovery supports the discovery of the LACP, SPB, MVRP, and IP protocols.
• The automatically discovered configuration for LACP and SPB (not MVRP) can be permanently saved
to the switch configuration file so that the configuration is not lost on the next switch reboot.
All switches that ship from the factory default to running in the VC mode and attempt to run the automatic
VC protocol, Automatic Remote Configuration, and then Automatic Fabric. Some of these automatic
features can be disabled during the switch reboot or after the switch has finished booting if desired.
When a switch boots with no configuration file or with a configuration file with a size of 0 bytes, the
following boot processes occur:
1 The switch will run the automatic VC protocol and try to automatically configure the Virtual Fabric
Links (VFLs) and setup a VC.
2 Once the automatic VC process completes, the automatic remote configuration download process
starts.
3 Once the automatic remote configuration download process completes, the Automatic Fabric discovery
process starts.
For more information about the boot sequence of these automatic management features, see Chapter 1,
“Getting Started and Upgrading AOS.”
Automatic Fabric Discovery Process
The Automatic Fabric discovery process starts when one of the following occurs:
• The switch boots up without a configuration file and the automatic VC and Automatic Remote
Configuration processes have completed.
• The switch boots up with an existing configuration file that enables Automatic Fabric for the switch.
• The Automatic Fabric discovery time interval expires. For example, if the time interval is set for 30
minutes, every 30 minutes the discovery process will start again.
• The administrator manually starts the discovery process on the switch.
Once the Automatic Fabric discovery process starts, the following events are triggered for ports on which
the Automatic Fabric feature is enabled:
1 The switch will start the LACP discovery process.
2 After the LACP discovery process is complete, the SPB automatic discovery process will start.
3 After the SPB and UNP SPB SAP discovery process is complete, the MVRP automatic discovery