UAFX defines the use of LLDP for the discovery of IA-stations, their external ports, and their external connectivity (see 7.3.2). A Topology Discovery Entity (TDE) queries this information by remote management to derive the physical network topology and provide it to a System Engineer (see Figure 17).

NOTE A Topology Discovery Entity (TDE) can be run from anywhere in the network with reachability to the to-be-discovered devices.

Figure 17 – Example of a TDE querying LLDP information from two UAFX Stations and an IA-station