Operation Manual

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Chapter 16 Cluster
With the development of network technology, the network scale is getting larger and more
network devices are required, which may result in a more complicated network management
system. As a large number of devices need to be assigned different network addresses and
every management device needs to be respectively configured to meet the application
requirements, manpower are needed.
The Cluster Management function can solve the above problem. It is mainly used to central
manage the scattered devices in the network. A network administrator can manage and
maintain the switches in the cluster via a management switch. The management switch is the
commander of the cluster and the others are member switches.
The typical topology is as follows.
Figure 16-1 Cluster topology
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Cluster Role
According to their functions and status in a cluster, switches in the cluster play different roles.
You can specify the role a switch plays. There are four roles.
Commander Switch: Indicates the device that can configure and manage all the devices in a
cluster. It discovers and determins the candidate switches by collecting NDP (Neighbor
Discovery Protocol) and NTDP (Neighbor Topology Discovery Protocol).
Member Switch: Indicates the device that is managed in a cluster.
Candidate Switch: Indicates the device that does not belong to any cluster though it can be
added to a cluster.
Individual Switch: Indicates the device with cluster feature disabled.