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In-Band vs Out of Band Management

There are always multiple ways of allocating IP address when it comes to management of routers and switches. There are dedicated management port as well as things like SVI ( Switch Virtual Interface) can always come into handy. Why to us SVI when you have a dedicated management port might always come into mind. Let me shortly explain the difference between SVI and dedicated management port and also its use case.

Out of Band Management

  • Dedicated management port with dedicate management plane 
  • Better in terms of security
  • More preferable
In-Band
  • Switch Virtual Interface (SVI) needs to be created 
  • Data Plane is used instead of dedicated management plane.
  • Not preferable in case of security kept in mind.
So why In-Band is required ? So , recently I came across a scenario where I had to connect back to back management port for vPC in Nexus 9000 series switch for peer link connectivity. So, I had to create a SVI interface for managing the device . This can be one of the scenario. The other one can be when you are trying to utilize your switches for its Layer 3 capabilities.

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