Users Guide
Table Of Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 SmartFabric Services for PowerEdge MX: An overview
- 3 SmartFabric mode requirements, guidelines, and restrictions
- 3.1 Create multi-chassis management group
- 3.2 Upstream network requirements
- 3.3 VLAN scaling guidelines
- 3.4 Configuring port speed and breakout
- 3.5 Switch slot placement for SmartFabric mode
- 3.6 Switch-to-Switch cabling
- 3.7 NIC teaming guidelines
- 3.8 Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) behavior
- 3.9 Other restrictions and guidelines
- 4 Creating a SmartFabric
- 4.1 Physically cable MX chassis and upstream switches
- 4.2 Define VLANs
- 4.3 Create the SmartFabric
- 4.4 Configure uplink port speed or breakout, if needed
- 4.5 Create Ethernet uplink
- 4.6 Configure Fibre Channel universal ports
- 4.7 Create Fibre Channel uplinks
- 4.8 Configuring the upstream switch and connect uplink cables
- 5 Deploying a server
- 6 SmartFabric operations
- 7 Switch operations
- 8 Validating the SmartFabric deployment
- 9 SmartFabric troubleshooting
- 9.1 Troubleshooting errors encountered for port group breakout
- 9.2 Troubleshooting Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
- 9.3 Verify VLT/vPC configuration on upstream switches
- 9.4 Discovery of FEM and compute sleds
- 9.5 Troubleshooting uplink errors
- 9.6 Troubleshooting FC/FCoE
- 9.7 SmartFabric Services – Troubleshooting commands
- 10 Uplink configuration scenarios
- 10.1 Scenario 1 - SmartFabric deployment with Dell EMC PowerSwitch Z9100-ON upstream switches
- 10.2 Scenario 2 - SmartFabric connected to Cisco Nexus 3232C switches
- 10.3 Scenario 3: Connect MX9116n FSE to Fibre Channel storage - NPIV Proxy Gateway mode
- 10.4 Scenario 4: Connect MX9116n FSE to Fibre Channel storage - FC Direct Attach
- 10.5 Scenario 5: Connect MX5108n to Fibre Channel storage - FSB
- 10.6 Scenario 6: Configure Boot from SAN
- A Hardware used in this document
- B Dell EMC Unity information
- C Additional information
- D Validated components
- E Technical resources
- F Support and feedback
11 Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide
2 SmartFabric Services for PowerEdge MX: An overview
2.1 Dell EMC SmartFabric OS10
The networking market is transitioning from a closed, proprietary stack to open hardware supporting a variety
of operating systems. Dell EMC SmartFabric OS10 is designed to allow multi-layered disaggregation of the
network functionality. While OS10 contributions to Open Source provide users freedom and flexibility to pick
their own third-party networking, monitoring, management and orchestration applications, SmartFabric OS10
bundles industry hardened networking stack featuring standard L2 and L3 protocols over a standard and well
accepted CLI interface.
Dell EMC SmartFabric OS10 High Level Architecture
2.2 Operating modes
The Dell EMC Networking MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine (FSE) and MX5108n Ethernet Switch operate in
one of two modes:
• Full Switch mode (Default) – All switch-specific SmartFabric OS10 capabilities are available
• SmartFabric mode – Switches operate as a Layer 2 I/O aggregation fabric and are managed
through the Open Manage Enterprise-Modular (OME-M) console
The following SmartFabric OS10 CLI commands have been added specifically for the PowerEdge MX
platform: