A template split cleans up switch roles and later DR or orphan failover traffic fails only when the standby becomes relevant.
An MLAG pair carries normal traffic and a disaster-recovery test fails
Production looks healthy, yet the recovery-only VLAN path exists asymmetrically and fails only under failover conditions.
Scenario
What to check first
- Identify the primary failure signal in the The Recovery VLAN Was Ready on the Active Side and Imaginary on the Standby scenario.
- Separate visible symptoms from the underlying technical dependency.
- Describe the safest recovery path and the follow-up prevention work.
Checking checklist
- Summarize the current impact and the last known change.
- Collect direct evidence from logs, runtime state, and configuration before changing anything.
- Separate immediate recovery from permanent prevention work.
Recovery and prevention
Audit recovery-only VLAN treatment on both peers before blaming endpoint teaming.
Questions worth viewing together
Community-field network problem inspired by MLAG operations cases where a recovery VLAN was trunked only on one peer. Recovery paths can drift silently because they are invisible during steady-state operation.
Teams often blame host bonding or STP when the standby peer simply never carried the recovery VLAN correctly.
Template splits should be validated against every failover-only VLAN and orphan-port path.
Similar cases seen in the field