Fabric Attach

The Fabric Attach feature allows attachment of non-SPB (Shortest Path Bridging) stations to an SPB network through a Fabric Attach server.

Fabric Attach uses the IEEE802.1ab Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) extensions to automatically attach network devices to individual services in a IEEE 802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) network. These network devices typically do not support SPB, MAC-in-MAC (802.1ah) or Network Services Identifier (NSI)/Individual Service Identifier (ISID) usage, and therefore cannot easily take advantage of the Fabric infrastructure without manual configuration of VLAN attachments to NSIs or ISIDs in multiple locations. Fabric Attach deals with this issue by facilitating automated network device discovery and the automatic configuration and teardown of NSI/ISID to VLAN associations at the edge of the network.