Unicast packets with unknown destinations

A meshed switch receiving a unicast packet with an unknown destination does not flood the packet onto the mesh. Instead, the switch sends a query on the mesh to learn the location of the unicast destination. The meshed switches then send 802.2 test packets through their non-meshed ports. After the unicast destination is found and learned by the mesh, subsequent packets having the same destination address will be forwarded. By increasing the MAC Age Time you can cause the switch address table to retain device addresses longer. Because the switches in a mesh exchange address information, this will help to decrease the number of unicast packets with unknown destinations, which improves latency within the switch mesh. Also, in an IP environment, HPE recommends that you configure IP addresses on meshed switches. This makes the discovery mechanism more robust, which contributes to decreased latency. For more on mac-age-time, see the ArubaOS-Switch Basic Operations Guide for your switch.