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Cisco SCE 8000 10GBE Software Configuration Guide
OL-30621-02
Chapter 11 Redundancy and Failover
Link Failure Reflection
Link Failure Reflection
The Cisco SCE platforms are transparent at Layers 2 and 3. The Cisco SCE 8000 platform operates in
promiscuous mode, and the network elements on both sides of the Cisco SCE platform, are using the
MAC address of the other network element when forwarding traffic.
To assist the network elements on both sides of the Cisco SCE platform to identify the link failures as
quickly as possible, the Cisco SCE platform supports a functionality of reflecting to the other side of the
Cisco SCE platforms events of link failure. When the link on one side of the Cisco SCE platform fails,
the corresponding link on the other side is forced down, to reflect the failure. Link failure reflection is
done on the traffic ports. When operating in deployments of single Cisco SCE platform with two data
links, link failure is reflected between the two ports of each link.
When working with two cascaded Cisco SCE platforms, link failure is reflected in two cases:
•
Reflection between the traffic ports of each Cisco SCE platform.
•
If there is a failure in the cascade port link, the two Cisco SCE platforms can no longer support
proper processing of the two links, since the traffic flowing on the standby Cisco SCE platform’s
link must be forwarded to the active Cisco SCE platform for processing. In this case the link failure
is reflected from the cascade ports to the traffic ports of the standby Cisco SCE platform, in order
to force the network to switch all the traffic only through the link of the active Cisco SCE platform.