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
90 Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide
10.1.1 Dell EMC PowerSwitch Z9100-ON switch configuration
The following section outlines the configuration commands issued to the Dell EMC PowerSwitch Z9100-ON
switches. The switches start at their factory default settings per Appendix C.3.
Note: The MX IOMs run Rapid Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (RPVST+) by default. RPVST+ runs RSTP on each
VLAN while RSTP runs a single instance of spanning tree across the default VLAN. The Dell EMC PowerSwitch
Z9100-ON used in this example runs SmartFabric OS10 and has RPVST+ enabled by default. See Spanning
Tree Protocol recommendations for more information.
There are 4 steps to configure the Z9100-ON upstream switches:
1. Set the switch hostname and management IP address.
2. Configure the VLT between the switches.
3. Configure the VLANs.
4. Configure the port channels to connect to the MX switches.
Use the following commands to set the hostname, and to configure the OOB management interface and
default gateway.
Z9100-ON Leaf 1
Z9100-ON Leaf 2
configure terminal
hostname Z9100-Leaf1
interface mgmt 1/1/1
no ip address dhcp
no shutdown
ip address 100.67.162.35/24
management route 0.0.0.0/0 100.67.162.254
configure terminal
hostname Z9100-Leaf2
interface mgmt 1/1/1
no ip address dhcp
no shutdown
ip address 100.67.162.34/24
management route 0.0.0.0/0 100.67.162.254
Note: Use spanning-tree {vlan vlan-id priority priority-value} command to set the bridge
priority for the upstream switches. The bridge priority ranges from 0 to 61440 in increments of 4096. For example,
to make Z9100-ON Leaf 1 as the root bridge for VLAN 10, enter the command spanning-tree vlan 10
priority 4096.
Configure the VLT between switches using the following commands. VLT configuration involves setting a
discovery interface range and discovering the VLT peer in the VLTi.
Z9100-ON Leaf 1
Z9100-ON Leaf 2
interface range ethernet1/1/29-1/1/31
description VLTi
no shutdown
no switchport
vlt-domain 1
backup destination 100.67.162.34
discovery-interface ethernet1/1/29-1/1/31
interface range ethernet1/1/29-1/1/31
description VLTi
no shutdown
no switchport
vlt-domain 1
backup destination 100.67.169.35
discovery-interface ethernet1/1/29-1/1/31