HP HPE7-A08 HPE Aruba Networking Certified Professional – Switching Exam Practice Test

For a 1 Gbps link between two Aruba CX switches, the appropriate SFP port type is an SFP (Small Form-factor Pluggable). SFP+ and SFP28 are used for higher speeds such as 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps, respectively. QSFP+ is for even higher speeds (40 Gbps).

SFP supports 1 Gbps (1000BASE-X)

SFP+ supports 10 Gbps

SFP28 supports 25 Gbps and above

QSFP+ supports 40 Gbps and above

Therefore, the correct port type for a 1 Gbps link is SFP.

When deploying HPE Aruba VSX switches parallel to existing HPE Comware switches, choosing a first-hop redundancy protocol compatible with both platforms is essential. VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) is widely supported across multiple vendors and is suitable for multi-vendor environments.

HSRP is Cisco proprietary and not supported on Aruba Comware or CX.

Active Forwarding and Active Gateway are Aruba VSX internal mechanisms, not standard first-hop redundancy protocols.

VRRP provides seamless failover and is supported in Comware and Aruba CX platforms.

Thus, VRRP is the suitable choice.

When line card LEDs do not light up, and the cards are newly installed, the best troubleshooting methodology is Divide and conquer by swapping the line cards. This method isolates the problem by testing hardware in different slots or known working units.

Spot the difference involves comparing configurations, which does not directly isolate hardware failure.

Follow the path is more suited for connectivity issues.

Replace configuration relates to software or config problems.

Hardware issues are best isolated by physically swapping components.

To keep the BGP routing table size manageable and below a specified threshold, the customer should consider enforcing routing policies with aggregation. Route aggregation reduces the number of individual routes advertised and stored by combining multiple routes into a summarized one.

Setting route metrics equal or advertising only a primary path does not reduce the number of routes as effectively.

Importing only the default route (0.0.0.0/0) is impractical for normal operations.

Thus, route aggregation is the best practice for controlling routing table size in merged BGP environments.

The Aruba CX switches REST API supports the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) data format for both requests and responses. JSON is widely adopted for REST APIs due to its lightweight and readable format.

XML and YAML are not supported for REST API on CX switches.

SOAP is a different protocol not used by Aruba CX REST API.

Therefore, JSON is the correct and supported data format.

The multicast group address 239.0.0.1 falls within the administratively scoped multicast addresses but overlaps with the Link-Local Multicast address scope (224.0.0.0/24), which is reserved for protocol control traffic and should not be used for application multicast groups. Using an address that overlaps with the Link-Local scope can cause multicast routing and forwarding issues, leading to video streaming clients not receiving the stream.

IGMP snooping version or enabling IGMP without multicast traffic do not cause this issue.

PIM-SM discovery addresses are different multicast addresses.

OSPF neighbors not forming adjacency and stuck in the 2WAY state typically indicates that the interface is set to passive mode, preventing OSPF Hello packets from being sent or received on that interface.

Removing passive mode on VLAN 182 allows OSPF Hello messages to be exchanged and adjacency to form.

Options involving network type or costs do not affect adjacency states related to passive interfaces.

The max-metric router-lsa on-startup affects LSA advertisements, not adjacency formation.

Therefore, the fix is to configure no passive-interface vlan182.

To monitor BGP neighbor state changes and automatically create a helpdesk ticket, the NAE (Network Analytics Engine) action to use is a REST API call. This allows integration with external ticketing or automation systems, enabling automated ticket creation when a monitored event occurs.

Executing shell commands, sending emails, or generating logs are limited to internal actions and do not integrate as seamlessly with helpdesk systems.

REST API calls allow custom integration and automation.

If both switches are configured with default spanning-tree priorities and both appear as primary root bridges, to have a single spanning tree domain, matching MST configuration (Multiple Spanning Tree) must be created on Core-2 to align with Core-1.

Setting priority to 1 on one switch can help but matching MST configurations is the recommended approach for multiple VLANs.

Creating MST instances on only one switch will not ensure consistency.

Matching MST configurations ensures consistent root bridge election and stable spanning tree.

To capture packets on an HPE Aruba CX switch and view the output remotely in real-time, the best practice is to use a mirror session that forwards traffic to a remote device running a packet analyzer such as Wireshark. ERSPAN (Encapsulated Remote Switched Port Analyzer) allows the mirror traffic to be encapsulated in GRE and sent over an IP network to a remote monitoring station. This method ensures full packet capture with no local resource constraints and provides full visibility to the analyst.

Option B (using tcpdump on the switch) only provides summarized or limited capture locally.

Option C (mirroring to another switch port) only allows local monitoring and does not provide remote real-time viewing.

Option D (mirror to CPU and then use tshark) is less efficient and may be resource-intensive on the switch.

Therefore, configuring ERSPAN to a remote Wireshark host is the recommended and best way.

To find which changes were made on an HPE Aruba CX switch from the GUI, the correct command is:

show checkpoint diff — this compares the running configuration with stored saved-config revisions.

Using "saved-config revisions" as the comparison base allows the GUI to show what has changed since the last saved configuration.

Other options mix checkpoint and saved-config terminology incorrectly.

If the ISL between two VSX core switches is down and logs indicate that Core-2 has disabled its VSX LAG interfaces, it means Core-2 has disabled its VSX LAG interfaces, likely as a protective or failover mechanism.

Keepalive packets being dropped (Option B) may cause issues but logs specifically state interface disablement.

Both switches forwarding traffic (Option C) is unlikely if ISL is down.

Downstream switches inability to forward traffic (Option D) is a consequence, not the cause.

DHCP snooping requires to be enabled globally before it will function correctly. If it is not enabled globally, even if enabled on VLAN interfaces, DHCP snooping will not work.

Enabling authorized DHCP servers (A) or trusted interfaces (B) is necessary but only after global enabling.

Enabling DHCP snooping on VLAN (C) is not sufficient without global enablement.

Therefore, enabling DHCP snooping globally is the first step to activate the feature.

When adding a switch with an existing configuration into a group in Aruba Central, the group requires devices to have factory default configurations to allow Central to apply the group config correctly.

If the switch has an existing configuration, synchronization and auto-commit may fail because of configuration conflicts.

Option A: Pending authorization is unrelated to config synchronization.

Option C: Auto-commit can be disabled but does not block syncing existing config.

Option D: VSX support limitations are irrelevant here.

Therefore, the likely cause is that only switches with factory default config can be added to a group with existing config.

Configuring LACP link aggregation on two Aruba CX 6200M VSF switches requires configuring matching LAG settings on both switches, including LACP mode, LAG ID, and interfaces involved. Option C represents a correct configuration example using Aruba’s stacking/clustering technologies to create LAGs that utilize redundant ports from both switches.

The other options either have incorrect syntax, missing LACP parameters, or do not align with VSF cluster best practices for LAG.

The correct LAG setup ensures link redundancy, load balancing, and failover between aggregation and access switches.

LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) modes can be active or passive. When two switches are both configured in passive mode, no LACP packets are initiated, causing the link aggregation to fail or go into a block state.

Changing one side from passive to active causes that switch to initiate LACP negotiation, resolving the block state.

Changing to static mode disables LACP negotiation, which is not recommended unless both sides are static.

Changing timeout does not solve LACP block issues caused by mode mismatches.

Therefore, changing one switch’s LACP mode from passive to active is necessary to resolve the block.

In the exhibit, the CX8325 switch ports 1/1/47 and 1/1/48 are connected in a VSX setup. According to Aruba VSX best practices, ports on the CX8325 switch that serve as ISL or VSX interconnects should use SFP28 optics for 25Gbps links. If SFP56 optics are used, it would be incorrect because CX8325 ports are designed to support SFP28 modules for these speeds.

CX6300 ports use SFP56 or QSFP28 depending on model and link speed.

CX8300 series ports designed for QSFP28 for higher speeds.

Hence, the best practice is to use SFP28 on CX8325 for the interconnect links.

The command erase all zeroize performs a secure erase on the switch, which deletes all customer data including startup-config and stored credentials. This process can take up to an hour depending on the hardware and storage media.

It does not retain running config (Option A).

It does not restore the factory AOS-CX image (Option B).

Admin credentials are deleted as part of the secure erase (Option C is incorrect).

Therefore, this command securely wipes all data and resets the device.

In a hotel environment where a single subnet is used for wired guests, but guest devices in a conference room need to communicate with each other (and with the default gateway), while remaining isolated from other guests elsewhere, Community VLANs are appropriate.

Community VLANs allow hosts within the same VLAN community to communicate with each other and the default gateway but are isolated from hosts in other communities.

Isolated VLANs block communication between ports and only allow communication to the gateway.

Therefore, assigning conference room guests to a community VLAN and the gateway to a primary VLAN allows the desired communication model.

To isolate wired ports on the same VLAN on a large scale (such as hotel rooms) but allow communication within the same VLAN for common areas, Private VLANs (PVLANs) are recommended. PVLANs allow segmentation within a single VLAN by dividing it into primary and secondary VLANs, controlling communication between ports.

VPN and VXLAN are overlay technologies for different purposes.

UBT (User-Based Tunneling) is related to wireless user segmentation, not wired port isolation.

Therefore, PVLANs provide the simplest and most effective solution to isolate room ports within a single VLAN.

To prevent rogue DHCP servers in a VLAN, DHCP snooping authorized-server commands are used to specify trusted DHCP servers allowed to respond.

Option A (dhcpv4-snooping trust 10.100.100.10) configures a trusted port, but it is not VLAN specific and not precise enough for this purpose.

Enabling DHCP snooping globally and on VLAN or interface (Options C and D) are prerequisites but do not prevent rogue servers unless authorized servers are defined.

Option B correctly enables an authorized DHCP server IP on VLAN 30, blocking unauthorized DHCP responses.

The LACP fallback command in Aruba VSX configurations allows the system to continue forwarding traffic even if LACP negotiation fails or is not established. This is useful when provisioning a gateway or link that does not support LACP, ensuring that the port remains operational in a static manner.

It is not specifically for backward compatibility with LACP v1.

It does not relate to operation with a single partner interface.

It also is not about active/passive LACP modes per se.

Therefore, LACP fallback is configured to support provisioning a gateway without LACP.