Cisco APIC Layer 3 Networking Configuration Guide, Release 6.2(x)

PDF

Cisco APIC Layer 3 Networking Configuration Guide, Release 6.2(x)

Configure the stripe winner policy

Updated: April 17, 2026

Want to summarize with AI?

Log in

Describes a configurable multicast traffic management feature that allows selection of a specific POD for stripe winner election to optimize latency and performance in multi-POD ACI fabrics.

A config stripe winner policy is a configurable multicast traffic management feature that

  • allows selection of a specific POD for stripe winner election for multicast groups, group ranges, sources, or source ranges

  • ensures the border leaf elected as stripe winner is from the selected POD to optimize latency

  • supports excluding remote leaf switches from stripe winner election when enabled, and

  • addresses scenarios where default stripe winner selection across pods may result in additional latency for multicast streams.

Default stripe winner behavior and limitations

When there are multiple PIM enabled border leaf switches in a VRF, the default behavior is to select one border leaf switch as the stripe winner for a multicast group for PIM-SM or group and source for PIM-SSM. The border leaf selected as the stripe winner will act as the last hop router (LHR) for the group and send PIM join/prune messages on the externally connected links towards external sources, see Multiple Border Leaf Switches as Designated Forwarder. The border leaf selected as the stripe winner can be any border leaf in any POD across the fabric. This default behavior may result in additional latency for multicast streams in scenarios where:

  • All or most receivers for a known multicast group or group range will be connected in one POD. If the stripe winner for the group is elected in a different POD, the multicast stream from external sources will be forwarded across the IPN resulting in added latency.

  • External multicast source(s) are in the same physical location as one of the pods. If the stripe winner for the multicast group is selected in a different POD, this may also add additional latency for the flow as the flows would need to traverse the external network to reach the border leaf in the remote POD and then traverse the IPN to reach receivers in the POD closest to the source.

Beginning with ACI release 6.0(2), the fabric supports a configurable stripe winner policy where you can select a POD for a specific multicast group, group range and/or source, source range. This will ensure that the border leaf elected as the stripe winner is from the selected POD solving the scenarios described above.

This feature also supports the option to exclude any remote leaf switches. When this option is enabled, remote leaf switches with PIM enabled L3Outs will be excluded from the stripe winner election.

Config based stripe winner election guidelines and requirements

  • Only the BLs in the POD are considered for stripe winner election, contrary to the case where all BLs from all PODs would have been considered if this configuration is not present.

  • Amongst the BLs in the POD, only one BL will be elected as the config based stripe winner.

  • If you select the exclude RL option, then the RLs will be excluded from the config stripe winner election.

  • All BLs in the POD will be considered candidates for being the stripe and the regular stripe winner to elect one BL (in the POD) as the stripe winner.

  • If there are no BLs in the configured POD or if none of the BLs are candidates for config stripe winner election, then the election will switch to a default stripe winner election logic, which is considering all BLs in all PODs as candidates.

  • When you perform a VRF delete and re-add operation do not add the config stripe winner configuration back with the VRF configuration.

  • You must add the VRF configuration first and then add the config stripe winner configuration after four minutes.

  • The config stripe winner may result in a scenario where the configured (S,G) stripe winner is a different border leaf than the (*,G) stripe winner. In this case, the BL that is the (*,G) stripe winner will also install an (S,G) mroute. Both the configured (S,G) stripe winner and the (*,G) stripe winner will receive multicast traffic from the external source but only the configured (S,G) stripe winner will forward multicast into the fabric.

  • Overlapping address ranges are not supported. For example, if 224.1.0/16 is already configured then you cannot configure 224.1.0/24 . However, you can have any number of configurations with different source ranges for 224.1.0/16 .

  • Config stripe winner policy is not supported for IPv6 multicast.

  • The maximum number of ranges that can be configured is 500 per VRF.

  • Config stripe winner policy is not supported with Inter-VRF Multicast in ACI release 6.0(2).