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HP SET: Networking and Aruba Fabric/Switching

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Networking and Aruba Fabric/Switching

What this domain tests

Networking and Aruba Fabric/Switching tests AOS-CX platform selection, high availability, and fabric design for campus and data center. Expect questions on stacking versus VSX, EVPN-VXLAN, Aruba Central, ClearPass, and Aruba Fabric Composer.

Core rules

  • AOS-CX is the modern switch OS; CX 6300 and 6400 fit access and aggregation, while 8325 and 8360 fit data-center leaf or spine roles.
  • VSF is stacking for simplified management; VSX is dual-control-plane high availability for data-center pairs.
  • EVPN-VXLAN is the standards-based data-center fabric; not every CX model or license supports it.
  • Aruba Fabric Composer automates fabric underlay and overlay, especially for VMware environments.
  • Central is cloud management and monitoring; ClearPass is policy and network access control. They solve different problems.

Worked example

A customer wants two data centers with active-active application access. Reason: use CX 8325 as spines and CX 6300 as top-of-rack leaves, run VSX at the pair level for Layer 2 high availability, and EVPN-VXLAN for the overlay. Aruba Fabric Composer automates the fabric and integrates with virtualization. For campus access, Central provides cloud operations. Replacing VSX with VSF across sites would create a single control plane and a spanning-tree dependency, which is the wrong design.

Traps

Treating VSF and VSX as interchangeable; stacking switches across data centers; assuming every CX switch supports EVPN-VXLAN; confusing Central with ClearPass; designing fabric without checking license and hardware support.