Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for discovering silent hosts in a software-defined network and directing traffic to the silent hosts in a scalable and targeted manner include determining interfaces of a fabric device that are connected to respective one or more endpoints, where the fabric device is configured to connect the endpoints to a network fabric of the software-defined network. At least a first interface is identified, where an address of a first endpoint connected to the first interface is not available at the fabric device. A first notification is transmitted to a control plane of the software-defined network based on identifying the first interface, where the control plane may create a flood list which includes the fabric device. Traffic intended for the first endpoint from the network fabric is received by the fabric device can be based on the flood list.