Users Guide

• The number of planned edge ports (future uplinks and downlinks) for the access switches.

• Whether the access switches need to act as a ToR or access.

• Fabric interlink bandwidth (the links between the aggregation and access switches).

• Downlinks (1 Gb, 10 Gb, or 40 Gb).

• The fabric interlink bandwidth (10 Gb or 40 Gb) is fixed and based on the fabric type.

NOTE: If you do not specify additional links for future expansion in the fabric design in the

Bandwidth and Port Count screen, you can only expand the downlinks on the existing fabric.

For information on how to expand a fabric, refer to Editing and Expanding an Existing Fabric Design. For

information about tiers, refer to Deployment Topology and Deployment Topology Use Cases.

Gathering Useful Information for a Layer 3 with Resiliency

(Routed VLT) Fabric

Gather the following useful information for a Layer 3 with Resiliency (Routed VLT) fabric before you

begin:

• Obtain the CSV file with the system MAC addresses, Service Tag, and serial numbers for each Dell-

provided switch, or manually enter this information.

• Obtain the location of the switches, including the rack and row number, from the network

administrator or network operator.

• Obtain the remote Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) / File Transfer Protocol (FTP) address from the

network administrator or network operator. To specify a TFTP/FTP site, go to the Administration >

Settings >TFTP/FTP screen. For information about which software packages to use, refer to the

Release Notes.

• Download the software image for each type of switch in the fabric. Each type of switch within the

fabric must use the same version of the software. Place the software images on the TFTP/FTP site so

that the switches can install the appropriate Dell Networking OS software image and configuration

file.

• Obtain the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server address for the fabric from your

DHCP network administrator or network operator. If a remote DHCP server is not available, AFM also

provides local DHCP. The DHCP server must be in the same subnet as the switches.

After you power cycle the switches, the switches communicate with the DHCP server to obtain a

management IP Address based on the system MAC Address. The DHCP server contains information

about where to load the correct software image configuration file for each type of switch from the

TFTP/FTP site during BMP. For information about BMP, refer to DHCP Integration.

• Obtain the pool of IP addresses for the management port for each switch in the fabric.

• Obtain an even number of IP addresses for the uplink configuration from the ISP service. The uplink

port number range is based on the selected bandwidth (10 Gb or 40 Gb).

– For 10 Gb uplink bandwidth, AFM supports 2–32 uplinks.

– For 40 Gb uplink bandwidth, AFM supports 2–8 uplinks.

• Obtain IP addresses or VLAN IDs for the downlink configuration of the server or ToR connection.

• Gather protocol configuration for uplinks and downlinks.

Supported Fabric Types