A connection to a Dante network manager, such as Dante Director, is required to establish new media subscriptions and to distribute the centrally managed AES-256 encryption keys. The network manager will also trigger key rotation under certain conditions to limit the risks of cryptoanalysis on compromised keys.
Even in a managed network, Dante flows are always direct between two endpoints.
In the even that a Dante network manager is unreachable, Dante audio will always continue to flow between endpoints. Encrypted flows will persist in their secure state and the current encryption keys will be maintained. Key rotation is deferred until the connection to the network manager is restored.