Connecting QFX3100 Director Devices to a Copper-Based QFX3000-M QFabric System Control Plane Network
Before you begin to connect a QFX3100 Director device to the copper-based QFX3000-M QFabric system control plane network:
Install your QFabric system hardware (Director group, Interconnect devices, and Node devices). See Installing and Connecting a QFX3100 Director Device, Installing and Connecting a QFX3600 or QFX3600-I Device, and Installing and Connecting a QFX3500 Device.
Install your EX4200 or EX4300 switches. See Installing and Connecting an EX4200 Switch or Installing and Connecting an EX4300 Switch.
Note:Use either EX4200-24T switches with an SFP+ uplink module installed or use an EX4300-48T with an SFP+ uplink module installed.
Install transceivers in ports 0 and 1 of the uplink module (see Install a Transceiver).
For an EX4200 Switch control plane, ensure that you have installed 1-Gigabit Ethernet SFP transceivers in each EX4200 switch uplink module. For a list of supported transceivers, see Pluggable Transceivers Supported on EX4200 Switches.
For an EX4300 Switch control plane, ensure that you have installed 10-Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ transceivers in each EX4300 switch uplink module. For a list of supported transceivers, see Pluggable Transceivers Supported on EX4300 Switches.
Interconnect the two EX Series switches. See Interconnecting Two EX Series Switches for QFX3000-M QFabric System Control Plane Redundancy.
Connect the two QFX3100 Director devices to create a Director group. See Connecting QFX3100 Director Devices in a Director Group.
Ensure that you have four RJ-45 patch cables available for each Director device. For cable specifications, see Cable Specifications for Copper-Based Control Plane Connections for the QFabric System.
A QFX3000-M QFabric system control plane and management network is formed by connecting the QFX Series devices in your network to two EX4200 or two EX4300 switches. QFX3100 Director devices have two 4-port network modules. Use the network module ports to connect the QFX3100 Director group to the EX Series switches (see Figure 1).

Use the following QFX3100 Director devices and EX Series switches for a copper-based QFX3000-M QFabric system control plane network:
QFX3100 Director devices with 1000BASE-T network modules installed. Each 1000BASE-T network module provides four 1000BASE-T ports (labeled 0 through 3) with RJ-45 connectors.
EX4200-24T or EX4300-48T switches with an SFP+ uplink module installed.
Specific ports have been reserved on the EX Series switches to connect to each of the QFX Series device types. Such design simplifies installation and facilitates timely deployment of a QFabric system.
To connect a QFX3100 Director device to the copper-based QFX3000-M QFabric control plane network (see Figure 1):