Difference between LACP MAD and LLDP MAD

[euroMedia]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to configure a VSF between two 5412R .

In the configuration guide, they talk about LLDP MAd and LACP MAD . but I do not understand the difference? LLDP MAD, we need dedicated equipment to do this would? How it can control all the trunk connected to the VSF?

I need éclairsissement and / or need configuration example ...

Thank you for your help,

[parnassus]

Initially (April 2016) I posed the same question trying to provide an answer (or, better, trying to clarifying myself) on this thread...that happened some months ago...well, at least two months in advance compared to the Aruba VSF Configuration Guide release date which happened in June 2016 (see below).

IMHO it's a matter of terminology confusion that grown up in absence of any clarification (note that on Aruba VSF Configuration Guide LACP-MAD is not present, LLDP-MAD is)...AFAIK who wrote that guide explicitly wrote that LLDP-MAD mechanism should be deployed with the help of a third device (the "assist" device or MAD device, the one that must support the LLDP-MAD passthrough feature) connected to both VSF members by means of a LACP Port Trunk (so...probably the confusion origin: LACP & LLDP-MAD): that normal LACP Port Trunk originating on the MAD device should have - conversely to what is usual to see with LACP Port Trunk deployed between standalone switches - one of its physical member links terminating against the VSF Commander member, the other one terminating against the Standby VSF member [*], that is clearly shown on the VSF Configuration Guide (a 2920 was used as MAD device in the example).

To be clear, I mean (hope not to be wrong here) that in my opinion the LACP-MAD term - if related to a VSF deployment with an "assist" device - could have been misused/misquestioned so we are here still questioning about LACP-MAD plus LLDP-MAD uselessly.

The Aruba VSF Configuration Guide I named was published here (at Aruba they called Vertical! not Virtual...)...will be interesting to see it updated (with OOBM-MAD? which "assist" device are suggested? and so on...)

Also, as you may know yet, the ArubaOS-Switch Management and Configuration guide for K/KA/KB.16.02 (August 2016) has a good section (Chapter 20) about VSF too.

There is also a nice Video about VSF in which Justin Nooan (Technical Marketing Engineer at HPE) explains quite well what VSF is and how to configure it; that video is called "Improve network resiliency with VSF simplicity" and can be probably still found here...but, as I recall, he provided no example of a LLDP-MAD configuration with an "assist" device.

[*] so it's "like" a Distributed Trunking - but it's not really a real Distributed Trunking due to the VSF nature of being (and presenting itself as) a Virtual Switch - where the Port Trunk links originated from a Switch "A" - here the "assist" one - terminates its member links respectively into two different Switches "B" and "C" - here the VSF Commander and VSF Standby Switches - instead of terminating both on a same Switch.