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
24 Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide
Recommended maximum number of VLANs in SmartFabric mode
OS10 Version
Parameter
Value
10.5.0.1
Recommended Max VLANs per Fabric
256
Recommended Max VLANs per Uplink
256
Recommended Max VLANs per server port
64
10.4.0.R3S
10.4.0.R4S
Recommended Max VLANs per Fabric
128
Recommended Max VLANs per Uplink
128
Recommended Max VLANs per server port
32
3.4 Configuring port speed and breakout
If you need to change the default port speed and/or breakout configuration of an uplink port, you must do that
prior to creating the uplink.
For example, the QSFP28 interfaces that belong to port groups 13, 14, 15, and 16 on MX9116n FSE are
typically used for uplink connections. By default, the ports are set to 1x100GbE. The QSFP28 interface
supports the following Ethernet breakout configurations:
• 1x 100GbE – One 100GbE interface
• 1x 40GbE – One 40GbE interface
• 2x 50GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into two 50GbE interfaces
• 4x 25GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into four 25GbE interfaces
• 4x 10GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into four 10GbE interfaces
The MX9116n FSE also supports Fibre Channel (FC) capabilities via Universal Ports on port-groups 15 and
16. For more information on configuring FC storage on the MX9116n FSE, see Section 10.3 and 10.4.
For more information on interface breakouts, see OS10 User Guide - PowerEdge MX I/O Modules Release
10.4.0E(R3S).
3.5 Switch slot placement for SmartFabric mode
SmartFabric mode supports three specific switch placement options. Attempts to use placements different
than described here is not supported and may result in unpredictable behavior and/or data loss.
Note: The cabling shown in this section, Section 3.5, is the VLTi connections between the MX switches.
3.5.1 Two MX9116n Fabric Switching Engines or FSEs in different chassis
This is the recommended placement when creating a SmartFabric on top of a Scalable Fabric Architecture.
Placing the FSE modules in different chassis provides redundancy in the event of a chassis failure. This
configuration supports placement in Chassis1 Slot A1 and Chassis 2 Slot A2 or Chassis1 Slot B1 and
Chassis 2 Slot B2. A SmartFabric cannot include a switch in Fabric A and a switch in Fabric B.