A retailer registers a new ACI leaf that is cabled only to an APIC. The leaf shows up in the fabric membership. Endpoints on that leaf cannot reach endpoints on any other leaf, and the leaf has no cable to a spine. What is missing?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
You registered at the front desk, and there is no hallway to the other rooms. An APIC can discover this leaf, but traffic between leaves still needs a spine, and this leaf has no spine link.
Full Explanation
ACI discovers a leaf that is directly connected to an APIC, which is why this leaf can be registered with no spine cable at all. Forwarding to other leaves goes leaf to spine to leaf. Without that fabric link, the leaf has no path into the rest of the fabric and endpoints on it cannot reach other leaves. A leaf-to-leaf cable does not become a fabric link and is not the path you add to fix this. The infrastructure VLAN stays the fabric VLAN used for discovery. Copying it into a tenant pool does not create a spine hop. Nexus Dashboard is not a transit device. Putting it between leaves would not forward tenant traffic, and it is not required for one leaf to reach another. Caveat: after you add the spine links, the leaf still needs those links on the fabric ports the design expects, and a single spine is a single point of failure even though it restores a path. Operational check: cable the leaf to the spines, then confirm endpoints on this leaf reach an endpoint on another leaf. Registering the leaf was the clue that the APIC link works. Do not factory-reset it while you are only missing the spine cables.