Overview of VSF

Aruba Virtual Switching Framework (VSF) technology virtualizes up to eight physical devices in the same layer into one virtual fabric which provides high availability and scalability. A virtual fabric is therefore multiple physical devices in the same layer that use VSF technology.

VSF allows supported switches connected to each other through normal Ethernet connections (copper or fiber) to behave like a single switch.

Two devices using VSF technology appearing as a single node to the upper-layer and lower-layer devices
For 16.01, VSF supported a 2–member stack for a pair of 5400R switches with V3 blades, interconnected through standard Ethernet connections with front-plane stacking capability. Interswitch connectivity was restricted to 10G and 40G links. From 16.03 onwards, VSF supported a 4-member stack for 1G and 10G links. In VSF 8–member stack, the same front-plane stacking capability has been extended to 2930F switches. Variants have:

  • 1G (copper and SFP) ports and 10G (SFP+) ports.

  • PoE+ and non-PoE+ ports.

  • None of the variants have an OOBM port.

The VSF feature allows the user to form a stack of up to eight devices of any SKU, including mixing the SKUs in a single stack. The switches in these stacks are interconnected using standard Ethernet connections. These interconnections between member switches are called VSF links. Each VSF link can comprise up to eight individual VSF ports, and traffic between two members will be load-balanced automatically across all the connected ports. Each switch can have two VSF links. The switches behave as a single virtual switch. 2930F supports a maximum of four 10G ports.

A 4–member VSF stack
NOTE:

The preceding figure applies to a VSF stack having more than four members too.