A 911 PSAP must inventory campus switches in Catalyst Center with working credentials before those devices can be assigned fabric roles. Why is discovery and inventory a prerequisite?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
You can’t promote a switch to fabric edge if the controller doesn’t even know it exists. Discovery and inventory are the “check-in at the front desk” step—credentials, reachability, software facts—before roles and intent land. Skip it and fabric provisioning has nowhere to push.
Full Explanation
A 911 PSAP must inventory campus switches in Catalyst Center with working credentials before those devices can be fabric-provisioned. The controller can only push fabric roles and underlay/overlay intent on devices it has discovered, inventoried, and can manage. Discovery and inventory are therefore prerequisites—not optional polish—for public-safety fabric builds.
Discovery converting every switch into a wireless controller and removing the need for borders misrepresents inventory; discovery does not change device persona into a WLC or delete border requirements.
Inventory replacing IS-IS with static VXLAN flood-lists on access ports confuses manageability onboarding with underlay/overlay dataplane design.
Fabric roles assigned by DHCP alone without controller reachability skip the Catalyst Center provisioning model the stem targets.
Exam caveat: reachability, correct credentials, telemetry (SNMP/NETCONF/HTTPS as required), and site assignment all matter; “pingable” alone is not inventoried.
Operational check: discover PSAP switches, fix failed credential/telemetry checks, confirm inventory Complete, then assign fabric roles. Record discovery sources and credential vault references in the PSAP change plan before any overlay push.