Operation Manual

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The roles can be changed from one to anther following the specified rules.

The current switch you create cluster is specified as the commander switch.

The commander switch discovers and determines candidate switches by collecting related
information.

After being added to the cluster, the candidate switch becomes to be the member switch.

After being removed from the cluster, the member switch becomes to be the candidate
switch.

The commander switch becomes to be the candidate switch only when the cluster is
deleted.

Introduction to Cluster
Cluster functions to configure and manage the switches in the cluster based on three
protocols, NDP, NTDP and CMP (Cluster Management Protocol).

NDP: All switches get neighbor information by collecting NDP.

NTDP: The commander switch collects the NDP information and neighboring connection
information of each device in a specific network range to determine the candidate switches
in the cluster.
Cluster maintenance: The commander switch adds the candidate switch to the cluster and
removes the member switch from the cluster according to the collected NTDP information.
The Cluster module, mainly used for cluster management configuration, including three
submenus: NDP, NTDP and Cluster.
16.1 NDP
NDP (Neighbor Discovery Protocol) is used to get the information of the directly connected
neighbor devices to support cluster establishing. An NDP-enabled device sends NDP packets
regularly to neighbor devices as well as receives NDP packets from neighbor devices. An NDP
packet carries the NDP information (including the device name, MAC address, firmware version
and so on).
A switch keeps and maintains a neighbor information table, which contains the NDP information
of each neighbor switch. If a switch receives the NDP information of a new neighbor, it will add
the information to the neighbor information table. If the received NDP information is different
from the old information, the switch will update it in the neighbor information table; if the
received NDP information is the same with the old information, the switch will just update the
aging time; if the switch does not receive NDP information within the aging time, the switch will
remove the corresponding information from the table automatically.
The NDP function can be implemented on Neighbor Info, NDP Summary and NDP Config
pages.
16.1.1 Neighbor Info
On this page you can view the NDP neighbor information of the switch.
Choose the menu Cluster→NDP→Neighbor Info to load the following page.