By default, every Arista switch applies the read-only ACL (Access Control List) named "default-control-plane-acl" to control plane traffic in every VRF. This feature allows the user to configure a different ACL to override the system default applied to every VRF. VRF-specific control plane ACL configuration, if present, still takes precedence over the default ACL configured.

Leaf Smart System Upgrade (SSU) provides the ability to upgrade the EOS image with minimal traffic disruption. To perform the SSU, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) should either be disabled or configured as MSTP. Meanwhile, all ports should be configured with admin edge ports (i.e., all ports are supposed to connect to host only) and the BPDU guard should be enabled for all edge ports.