Importing a Fabric Database

You can import the fabric databases (including devices) of EFA versions that are earlier than version 2.1.0. The support of an older database by newer software is often called Brownfield support.

EFA supports the import (or migration) fabric databases of earlier versions in the following ways:

You can import devices that were configured in the fabric of the earlier version of EFA.
You can import the fabric that was configured in the earlier version of EFA.
You can import and configure the fabric and the devices using the efa fabric import and efa fabric configure commands.
You can import only 3-stage Clos fabrics because only 3-stage Clos fabrics were supported in earlier versions of EFA (pre-2.1.0).

When you run the efa fabric import command, EFA performs the following tasks:

Learns (fetches) the device configuration and registers the devices with the EFA Inventory service. If registration fails for any device, EFA removes all devices from the inventory. You must fix the errors and rerun the command.
Fetches the older fabric settings and creates a new fabric. You provide the new fabric name when you run the command. If the fabric name you provide already exists, with devices added to it, then an error is returned. You must fix the error and then rerun the command.
Adds the registered devices to the new fabric and validates the configurations for global devices, interfaces, MCT, overlay gateway, EVPN, and BGP. For any conflict in the configuration, EFA deletes the devices from the fabric, unregisters the devices, and deletes the new fabric. The devices retain their pre-import configuration. You must fix the configuration conflicts and then rerun the command.
Note
The following configuration deviations are allowed: the MCT cluster name, the EVPN name, the overlay gateway name, and the MCT cluster node ID. In each case, the value is taken from the device.

Upon successful migration, devices that are added to the fabric have the provisioning state of CFG-READY. You then run the efa fabric configure command to transition the devices to the CFG-IN-SYNC state.

For more information, see Considerations for Importing a Fabric Database.