HPE7-A08 HPE Aruba Networking Certified Professional – Switching Questions and Answers

Colorless ports allow network devices to move or replace endpoints without changing port-level configurations, typically by automatically assigning network policies dynamically to any port.

HPE Aruba’s solution for colorless ports is the VNBT (Virtual Network Boundary Tagging) feature. VNBT allows dynamic segmentation of traffic, so ports can automatically take on the policies assigned to devices regardless of physical port location.

VRRP is a first-hop redundancy protocol and unrelated to port colorlessness.

VSF (Virtual Switching Framework) is for switch stacking.

VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) is for traffic segmentation.

Thus, VNBT is the correct feature to meet colorless port requirements.

For BGP in a multi-homed configuration advertising public IP blocks, the AS number should be a valid public AS number allocated by the regional internet registry (RIR). Numbers in the private AS range (64512–65534) are not suitable for public Internet announcements.

63472 falls in the public AS range (16-bit AS numbers below 64512).

64813, 65535, and 65218 are in the private or reserved range.

Therefore, 63472 is an example of a suitable public AS number.

To prevent the campus core from seeing the data center core as the root bridge in a spanning tree topology (which can cause suboptimal paths or loops), Root Guard should be applied on the campus-to-data center core link. Root Guard enforces root bridge placement by blocking any superior BPDU from a downstream switch, maintaining the intended root bridge location.

BPDU filter blocks BPDUs entirely, which can cause problems.

Admin edge and BPDU guard are related to edge port protection, not root placement control.

When adding a switch with an existing configuration into a group in Aruba Central, the group requires devices to have factory default configurations to allow Central to apply the group config correctly.

If the switch has an existing configuration, synchronization and auto-commit may fail because of configuration conflicts.

Option A: Pending authorization is unrelated to config synchronization.

Option C: Auto-commit can be disabled but does not block syncing existing config.

Option D: VSX support limitations are irrelevant here.

Therefore, the likely cause is that only switches with factory default config can be added to a group with existing config.

This question involves OSPF peering configured between CX 6300 switches using BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection). BFD parameters include transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) intervals.

Switch B has custom BFD interval values configured, but switch A is at default configuration.

According to Aruba CX default BFD parameters, the Tx and Rx intervals default to 2000ms (2 seconds). This is why switch A’s show BFD session displays intervals of 2000ms even if switch B uses different values.

BFD interval negotiation results in the highest Tx/Rx interval being used, or default in case one side is unconfigured.

When User-Based Tunneling (UBT) is configured and HTTPS-enabled websites fail to load, this often relates to issues with packet fragmentation. The solution is to enable IP fragmentation on the devices to allow large tunneled packets to be properly fragmented and reassembled.

Path MTU discovery is helpful but may be blocked in some networks.

Fragment reassembly is usually on the receiving end.

Jumbo frames may not resolve fragmentation across tunneled paths.

Therefore, enabling IP fragmentation is the most effective solution.

The troubleshooting methodology exemplified by comparing outputs or configurations to find discrepancies is called Spot the difference. It involves checking variations between working and non-working states or devices.

Follow the path: tracing packet flow step-by-step.

Top-down/Bottom-up: analyzing layers systematically.

Replace configuration: swapping configurations to isolate issues.

Here, comparing command outputs aligns with spot-the-difference.

During a VSX firmware upgrade, the vsx-syned process stops synchronization while the switches have mismatched software versions. Synchronization resumes once both switches run the same software.

VSX synchronization cannot continue while versions mismatch (contrary to options B and D).

Compatibility mode is not required before rebooting secondary switch (Option D incorrect).

This behavior ensures consistency and avoids split-brain during upgrades.

The output indicates the use of an aspath-list within a route-map, which is used to filter or match accepted AS paths in BGP. The aspath-list defines which AS paths are accepted, controlling route advertisement or acceptance.

The route-map is applied to neighbor configurations to filter routes based on AS paths.

Prefix-lists filter IP prefixes, not AS paths.

Neighbor remote-as export is not a valid command.

Therefore, the aspath-list is correctly used to define accepted AS paths.

Valid Network Analytics Engine (NAE) agent actions include:

Running CLI commands (Option A), allowing automated command execution for remediation or data collection.

Generating local system logs (Option C) for event tracking and audit purposes.

Other options:

Generating SNMP traps (B) and starting/stopping packet captures (D) are not typical NAE actions.

Creating a new TAC case (E) is an external process, not an automated NAE action.

The output indicates that the ISL (Inter-Switch Link) has failed, which in a VSX environment leads to a split-brain condition because the two VSX switches can no longer synchronize their state. Split-brain occurs when the VSX members lose communication over the ISL but continue forwarding traffic independently, causing network inconsistencies.

The device does not have the highest VSX priority (Option A).

VSX health cannot be confirmed as healthy due to ISL failure (Option C).

ISL configuration in the management VRF (Option D) is unrelated to split-brain detection.

Thus, ISL failure resulting in split-brain is the correct assessment.

Configuring LACP link aggregation on two Aruba CX 6200M VSF switches requires configuring matching LAG settings on both switches, including LACP mode, LAG ID, and interfaces involved. Option C represents a correct configuration example using Aruba’s stacking/clustering technologies to create LAGs that utilize redundant ports from both switches.

The other options either have incorrect syntax, missing LACP parameters, or do not align with VSF cluster best practices for LAG.

The correct LAG setup ensures link redundancy, load balancing, and failover between aggregation and access switches.

The question relates to configuring port 1/1/44 on an Aruba CX 8325 switch to connect to a 2930F switch (Aruba 2930F series). The key factor is interoperability between these two devices, especially regarding link aggregation and port channel settings.

The Aruba 2930F typically uses static or LACP link aggregation with standard settings. To connect an Aruba CX 8325 port to a 2930F port, the CX configuration must align with the 2930F settings, particularly regarding:

Enabling LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) on the port.

Correct VLAN tagging or trunk mode.

Matching speed and duplex settings.

From the options given, answer A corresponds to enabling LACP with appropriate trunk configuration that matches the 2930F. The other options either have mismatches in aggregation or trunking mode or missing LACP.

The multicast group address 239.0.0.1 falls within the administratively scoped multicast addresses but overlaps with the Link-Local Multicast address scope (224.0.0.0/24), which is reserved for protocol control traffic and should not be used for application multicast groups. Using an address that overlaps with the Link-Local scope can cause multicast routing and forwarding issues, leading to video streaming clients not receiving the stream.

IGMP snooping version or enabling IGMP without multicast traffic do not cause this issue.

PIM-SM discovery addresses are different multicast addresses.

Dynamic Segmentation (DS) requires certain capabilities on the switches to support user role assignment and traffic segmentation based on identity. The CX 6100 series switches do not support Dynamic Segmentation due to hardware and feature limitations. Therefore, they must be replaced with CX 6300 models, which support DS features natively.

Options involving GRE tunnels or VXLAN tunnels relate to traffic forwarding but do not enable DS on unsupported hardware.

Applying licenses does not upgrade hardware capabilities for DS.

LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) modes can be active or passive. When two switches are both configured in passive mode, no LACP packets are initiated, causing the link aggregation to fail or go into a block state.

Changing one side from passive to active causes that switch to initiate LACP negotiation, resolving the block state.

Changing to static mode disables LACP negotiation, which is not recommended unless both sides are static.

Changing timeout does not solve LACP block issues caused by mode mismatches.

Therefore, changing one switch’s LACP mode from passive to active is necessary to resolve the block.

To upgrade an HPE Aruba Networking CX 8320 VSX cluster with minimal downtime from a remote server, the correct command is:

vsx update-software scp://172.25.101.10/image vrf mgmt

Using SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) ensures secure transfer.

Specifying vrf mgmt ensures the update uses the management VRF for connectivity.

Using TFTP is less secure and not recommended for production upgrades.

The primary keyword is not valid for the vsx update-software command.

This method allows an in-service software upgrade (ISSU) with least disruption.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation:

When a recent configuration change causes a spike in CPU utilization that negatively impacts users, the fastest way to restore normal operation is to revert the change. This rollback immediately removes the offending configuration, potentially stabilizing the CPU and restoring service.

Rebooting the switch (Option A) is disruptive and takes more time.

Disabling debug logging (Option C) may help if debug is causing high CPU, but it doesn't undo config changes.

Pausing NAE monitoring (Option D) only suspends monitoring and doesn’t address the root cause.

Hence, reverting the recent config change is the best immediate action.

If interfaces 1/1/53 and 1/1/54 connected to the primary VSX switch are disconnected and Client A experiences disruptions, configuring VSX shutdown on-split on SW-A (the primary) is necessary to prevent traffic forwarding during a split-brain scenario. This feature ensures that in case of link failure, the switch does not continue forwarding traffic independently, avoiding network loops or inconsistent states.

Configuring keepalive VLANs on downstream or upstream lags helps in monitoring but does not prevent traffic disruption.

VSX shutdown on-split must be configured on the affected primary switch to protect network integrity.