HPE7-A08 Practice Exam Questions with Answers HPE Aruba Networking Certified Professional – Switching Certification

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation:

VLAN 1 is often configured as the native VLAN on interfaces to support Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP). During ZTP, devices communicate over VLAN 1 by default to download their configuration and updates.

LLDP and UBT are unrelated to native VLAN configuration for provisioning.

MSTP relates to spanning tree but does not dictate native VLAN usage.

Thus, VLAN 1 as native VLAN facilitates ZTP processes.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation:

To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks based on Layer 2 (Ethernet) addressing, enabling ARP inspection in the VLAN context is recommended. ARP inspection validates ARP packets and ensures only legitimate ARP responses are forwarded.

Enabling ARP inspection at VLAN level allows granular control.

Interface-level or global context is less typical or supported for ARP inspection on Aruba CX switches.

To upgrade an HPE Aruba Networking CX 8320 VSX cluster with minimal downtime from a remote server, the correct command is:

vsx update-software scp://172.25.101.10/image vrf mgmt

Using SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) ensures secure transfer.

Specifying vrf mgmt ensures the update uses the management VRF for connectivity.

Using TFTP is less secure and not recommended for production upgrades.

The primary keyword is not valid for the vsx update-software command.

This method allows an in-service software upgrade (ISSU) with least disruption.

Dynamic Segmentation (DS) requires certain capabilities on the switches to support user role assignment and traffic segmentation based on identity. The CX 6100 series switches do not support Dynamic Segmentation due to hardware and feature limitations. Therefore, they must be replaced with CX 6300 models, which support DS features natively.

Options involving GRE tunnels or VXLAN tunnels relate to traffic forwarding but do not enable DS on unsupported hardware.

Applying licenses does not upgrade hardware capabilities for DS.

During a VSX firmware upgrade, the vsx-syned process stops synchronization while the switches have mismatched software versions. Synchronization resumes once both switches run the same software.

VSX synchronization cannot continue while versions mismatch (contrary to options B and D).

Compatibility mode is not required before rebooting secondary switch (Option D incorrect).

This behavior ensures consistency and avoids split-brain during upgrades.

The question concerns an OSPF configuration where the interface does not come up as expected.

Common reasons for no OSPF adjacency or interface participation include:

Interfaces being passive (no adjacency formed)

Mismatched OSPF process IDs

Missing loopback interfaces (for router ID)

Layer-3 interfaces not associated with VRFs when VRFs are configured

Option D (a Layer-3 interface has not been associated with a VRF) is the root cause because in Aruba CX switches, when VRF is configured, all Layer-3 interfaces that participate in OSPF must be associated with the correct VRF instance to establish adjacency and participate correctly.

If an interface is not part of the VRF configured for OSPF, it will not appear in the OSPF interface list or form neighbors.

In HPE Aruba CX VSX, the hardware replacement of a single switch is non-disruptive for Layer 2 configurations because the system MAC address in the ServiceOS can be changed to the original system MAC address. This ensures consistent MAC address usage, avoiding disruptions in Layer 2 forwarding and preventing MAC flapping in the network.

Options involving VSX-sync or reserved system MAC ranges do not specifically address hardware replacement scenarios as effectively.

Changing the ServiceOS system MAC to match the original maintains Layer 2 stability during switch replacement.

Comprehensive Detailed Explanation:

For live upgrading a VSX cluster, the correct procedure is to use the vsx update-software option, which allows in-service software upgrade (ISSU) with minimal disruption by upgrading switches one at a time while maintaining synchronization.

issu update-software is not a recognized command in Aruba CX.

Reloading the primary first risks service disruption.

Compatibility mode is not required prior to reboot.

To determine which sites would benefit most from upgrading from 6200 to more powerful 6300 switches in Aruba Central, the best report to run is the Switch Capacity Planning report. It analyzes resource utilization and capacity to identify bottlenecks and potential upgrade candidates.

Infra Inventory lists devices but not capacity usage.

Resource Utilization gives raw usage but not in planning context.

Network report focuses on topology and status.

Hence, Switch Capacity Planning is the most relevant report for upgrade planning.

After enabling ARP protection, many users lose network access because ARP protection relies on DHCP snooping to build IP-to-MAC binding tables. Without DHCP snooping enabled and correctly configured, ARP inspection cannot verify ARP packets, causing legitimate traffic to be dropped.

Enabling DHCP snooping allows ARP inspection to validate ARP requests and responses.

Other options like dynamic IP lockdown, IGMP snooping, or DHCP reservations are unrelated or secondary.

When making changes remotely to critical configurations such as Control Plane ACLs on a CX switch, to protect against accidental lockout due to misconfiguration, you should enable checkpoint auto before committing the changes.

Checkpoint auto creates an automatic rollback timer. If the administrator loses connectivity (e.g., because of the ACL change), the system automatically rolls back the change after the timer expires, preventing lockout.

checkpoint commit is used after committing to save the checkpoint explicitly, but it does not provide automatic rollback.

Running checkpoint auto before committing is essential to have the rollback safety net.

When User-Based Tunneling (UBT) is configured and HTTPS-enabled websites fail to load, this often relates to issues with packet fragmentation. The solution is to enable IP fragmentation on the devices to allow large tunneled packets to be properly fragmented and reassembled.

Path MTU discovery is helpful but may be blocked in some networks.

Fragment reassembly is usually on the receiving end.

Jumbo frames may not resolve fragmentation across tunneled paths.

Therefore, enabling IP fragmentation is the most effective solution.

The issue is VMware vMotion traffic on VLAN 3903 failing, while other VLANs work normally. vMotion traffic requires support for larger frame sizes (jumbo frames) because vMotion packets are large and benefit from increased MTU to improve performance and reduce fragmentation.

Configuring jumbo frames on VLAN 3903 ensures that frames on this VLAN can use an MTU larger than the default 1500 bytes.

Configuring jumbo on the interface alone may not be sufficient if the VLAN itself is not set to support jumbo frames.

Setting MTU on VLAN or interface might not work unless jumbo frames are enabled.

To make configuration changes using multi-edit in Aruba Central when encountering the shown condition, you must enable edit config mode using the gear icon. This unlocks the configuration for editing and allows you to make batch changes safely.

Selecting configuration status or device in multi-edit alone is not sufficient.

Overriding state is not a standard approach in Aruba Central for editing configs.

This question involves OSPF peering configured between CX 6300 switches using BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection). BFD parameters include transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) intervals.

Switch B has custom BFD interval values configured, but switch A is at default configuration.

According to Aruba CX default BFD parameters, the Tx and Rx intervals default to 2000ms (2 seconds). This is why switch A’s show BFD session displays intervals of 2000ms even if switch B uses different values.

BFD interval negotiation results in the highest Tx/Rx interval being used, or default in case one side is unconfigured.

The output indicates that the ISL (Inter-Switch Link) has failed, which in a VSX environment leads to a split-brain condition because the two VSX switches can no longer synchronize their state. Split-brain occurs when the VSX members lose communication over the ISL but continue forwarding traffic independently, causing network inconsistencies.

The device does not have the highest VSX priority (Option A).

VSX health cannot be confirmed as healthy due to ISL failure (Option C).

ISL configuration in the management VRF (Option D) is unrelated to split-brain detection.

Thus, ISL failure resulting in split-brain is the correct assessment.

OSPF neighbors on broadcast networks typically reach the 2WAY state during the DR/BDR election process. It is normal behavior for OSPF neighbors on a broadcast network to be in the 2WAY state until a Designated Router (DR) and Backup DR (BDR) are elected.

The tie in DR election explains why multiple neighbors can be in 2WAY.

No OSPF networks advertised would not cause 2WAY.

IGMP snooping does not affect OSPF adjacency states.