iMaster NCE-Fabric can manage Huawei CloudEngine switches in either in-band or out-of-band mode.

The statement is false due to an incorrect description of in-band management communication .

Huawei iMaster NCE-Fabric indeed supports both in-band and out-of-band deployment modes , but the interfaces used are misrepresented:

In in-band mode , iMaster NCE-Fabric uses southbound interfaces (not northbound) to communicate with switches over the service network . These southbound interfaces are responsible for delivering configurations and collecting device information.

In out-of-band mode , the description is correct: the controller connects to device management interfaces via a dedicated management network , ensuring separation from service traffic.

The confusion arises because:

Northbound interfaces are used for communication between the controller and upper-layer systems (e.g., cloud platforms like OpenStack or ManageOne).

Southbound interfaces are used for communication between the controller and network devices .

Huawei architecture strictly separates these roles to enable clear control-plane layering and automation .

Therefore, because the statement incorrectly mentions northbound interfaces in in-band mode , the correct answer is FALSE .