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
52 Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide
A FC Alias is a human defined name that references a WWN. This allows users to refer to those devices by
the easy to remember alias instead of the long WWN. In this example, aliases for two MX740c compute sleds
and a Dell EMC Unity storage array is defined.
The WWNs for the servers are obtained via OME-M console.
MX9116n-A1
MX9116n-A2
configure terminal
fc alias mx740c-1p1
member wwn 20:01:00:0E:1E:09:A2:3A
fc alias mx740c-2p1
member wwn 20:01:00:0E:1E:09:B8:F6
fc alias SpA-0
member wwn 50:06:01:66:47:E0:1B:19
fc alias SpB-0
member wwn 50:06:01:6E:47:E0:1B:19
configure terminal
fc alias mx740c-1p2
member wwn 20:01:00:0E:1E:09:A2:3A
fc alias mx740c-2p2
member wwn 20:01:00:0E:1E:09:B8:F7
fc alias SpA-1
member wwn 50:06:01:67:47:E0:1B:19
fc alias SpB-1
member wwn 50:06:01:6F:47:E0:1B:19
Step 2: Create FC zones
Server and storage adapter WWPNs, or their aliases, are combined into zones to allow communication
between devices in the same zone. Dell EMC recommends single-initiator zoning. In other words, no more
than one server HBA port per zone. For high availability, each server HBA port should be zoned to at least
one port from SP A and one port from SP B. In this example, one zone is created for each server HBA port.
The zone contains the server port and the two storage processor ports connected to the same MX9116n FSE.
MX9116n-A1
MX9116n-A2
fc zone mx740c-1p1zone
member alias-name mx740c-1p1
member alias-name SpB-0
member alias-name SpA-0
fc zone mx740c-2p1zone
member alias-name mx740c-2p1
member alias-name SpB-0
member alias-name SpA-0
fc zone mx740c-1p2zone
member alias-name mx740c-1p2
member alias-name SpB-1
member alias-name SpA-1
fc zone mx740c-2p2zone
member alias-name mx740c-2p2
member alias-name SpB-1
member alias-name SpA-1
Step 3: Create a zoneset
A zone set is a collection of zones. A zone set named zoneset1 is created on each switch, and the zones are
added to it.
MX9116n-A1
MX9116n-A2
fc zoneset zoneset1
member mx740c-1p1zone
fc zoneset zoneset1
member mx740c-1p2zone