Owner's Manual

Supported Technologies and Protocols

AFC uses legacy switch technologies and protocols for installation and operation. To achieve multi-path

L2 support and provide loop-free L2 networks, AFC uses different technologies and protocols in the

switch hardware, including the following:

• Bare Metal Provisioning (BMP)

• Destination Lookup Failure (DLF)

• High Availability (HA)

• Link Aggregation Control Protocol and Network Interface Card Teaming (LACP and NIC Teaming)

• Switched Port Analyzer/Remote Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN/RSPAN)

• Quality of Service (QoS)

• Virtual Link Trunking (VLT)

Bare Metal Provisioning (BMP)

The software uses BMP to ensure the OF switches have the correct software version and configuration.

BMP uses DHCP to obtain the management IP addresses for the switches and TFTP to download the

software version and configuration.

Before the active fabric (AF) controller starts up, the OF switches are upgraded to the appropriate

firmware using BMP. The switches are also pre-set for optimal configuration, including the IP address of

the AF controllers. All ports are configured as OF ports. The switches connect to the AF controller using

their IP addresses. The AF controller uses the connected switches to build the active fabric. One AF

controller is automatically assigned as the active controller and controls the switches.

To allow switches to communicate simultaneously with multiple controllers, you can configure up to two

controller IP addresses on a switch. The primary controller will sends and receives OF messages to or

from the switches. The primary controller maintains an OF connection with the secondary controller.

When you enable BMP, AFC acts as the default DHCP server. The installation generates the dhcpd.conf

for the DHCP server.

NOTE: If BMP is enabled, ensure there is only one DHCP server in the management network.

For more information about BMP, refer to the relevant Dell Networking Configuration Guide.

Destination Lookup Failure (DLF)

When the switch checks the MAC destination address of the Ethernet frame to transmit it to the

appropriate port, if the specified MAC address exists in the switch’s L2 table, the frame is transmitted only

to the port associated with that entry. If the MAC address is not included in the switch’s L2 table, the

frame is considered a destination lookup failure (DLF) and is transmitted to all forwarding ports on that

VLAN. Unknown destination MAC packets are also considered DLF packets. A DLF tree is a variation of

Supported Technologies and Protocols