Fabric Attach BOSS (4800, 4900) and VSP

[XTRMUser]

I'm investigating configuring Fabric Attach to our 4800's/4900's, and had a few questions.

1. I haven't found much documentation for setting this up, and setting up the corresponding VSP ports. Some help along that line would be appreciated.

2. Some of our VLANs are used in multicasting (imaging computers). Will FA affect that?

3. We do have Extreme NAC set up, mostly using 802.1x, but some mac authentication as well. Any gotcha's? Any gotcha's for Extreme analytics?

4. We have some ERS switches that are daisy chained together. I understand that I can FA the first switch that connects directly to VSP, but not the others.

VSP's are 8400's running version 8.10 (2 that are VIST'ed together). Switches have one uplink to each in MLT/SMLT. I realize there will be interruptions moving from the current tagged vlans uplink(s) to fabric attach. I have some switches that have only single link to a 4450 (also runnning VSP 8.10).

4800's and 4900's are at latest versions.

Thanks in advance.

[XTRMUser]

One more question. Currently the ERS uplinks (they are mlt'd) have tagged traffic with all the vlans. On the VSPs, which are smlt'd, the vlans are defined on the port (tagged) from the ERS. To convert to Fabric Attach, I think I:

On the ERS, remove the vlans on the uplink ports, and put in the i-sid commands? Example: 

i-sid 20700 vlan 700

i-sid 20050 vlan 50

fa extended-logging.

VSP's. Take out the vlans as members of the port from the ERS

interface mlt 5 (where 5 is the mlt of the uplink port(s) of the ERS)

smlt

fa

fa enable

exit

I think this would be the procedure. Can somebody verify? Thanks.

[TQU · Accepted solution]

Hi XTRMUser, 

First, a document about Fabric Connect / Attach / Extend.. 

https://extremeportal.force.com/ExtrDownloadDetail?id=a412T000000BrTpQAK

2. No affect on multicast flux

3. That is good ! With FA attributs (in authentication response) you can add more flexibility to our NAC. like auto VLAN creation (and i-sid association ofc). Some exemple are describe in the document at the top. Analytics is not impacted. 

4. Yes, you need to connect your ERS directly to FA server (VSP). You can't chain it. 

Yes, short interruptions during the migration. 

Regards, 

Théo 

[XTRMUser]

Thanks so much for this article. I hadn't found it before. It's not short, so will take a bit to digest. But some preliminary reading (the Fabric Attach parts) seem to be just what I'm looking for.