The Assisted Replication feature operates as follows.
The first step for using the Assisted Replication feature is to configure the switches as replicator. After this step is complete, the Assisted Replication feature is ready to operate.
Assisted Replication depends on the discovery of tunnel end-points. There are currently a few different methods for this to happen within ExtremeXOS, including static configuration, or EVPN. The Assisted Replication feature is part of the OTM process and learns of the remote tunnel end-points (RTEPs) directly from there, and does not care how the end-points are discovered.
Assisted Replication feature only uses VXLAN Unicast-IPv4 encapsulation.
When a node is originally configured for VXLAN it will build BUM flood lists that include all local access ports for the tenant VLAN as well as all remote TEPs participating in the VNI. When the node is then configured as a leaf, the system modifiies the underlying BC/MC flood list to still include the local access ports for the tenant VLAN, but then only add the selected replicator as a tunnel destination.
Note
If a node is configured as a leaf, but it has no selected replicator (either it was not configured, or no node has been configured to advertise as such), no replication takes place, except to local access ports. This occurs to prevent duplication of frames that can occur when combining head-end with Assisted Replication.For information about configuring Assisted Replication, see Configuring Assisted Replication.