Beacon probing & notify switches

[Bart_VK]

Hi,

Since there is not much of documentation concerning the beacon probing & notify switches functionlity in VMware I wonder which protocol this is and if this is supported on all switches or only on a certain number of switches. If this is only supported on a number of switches, how can I determine on which switches that this functionality is supported ?

[bertdb]

beaconing is only supported on certain switches, because it is an action that requires an appropriate answer from the switch.

notify switches is supported on all switches, because it is just a way of triggering the MAC learning algorithm in a switch earlier than normal.

[Bart_VK]

Bert,

How can I determine in advance on which switches beacon probing is possible or not ?

[bertdb · Accepted solution]

as far as I know, there's no compatibility list for switches. You'd have to get your switch vendor to state whether a certain model is compliant or not.

btw, there are switches that can do a similar thing: they can put downlink ports in "link down" when their own uplink port is down. That's the functionality we gain from beaconing, but without beaconing this time