Reference Architecture

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 Connectivity between the Dell PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator and Force10 S4810 switches:
The two PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator modules are configured to operate as a port aggregator
for aggregating 16 internal ports to eight external ports.
The two fixed 40GbE QSFP+ ports on each PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator are used for network
connectivity to the two Force10 S4810 switches. These two 40GbE ports on each PowerEdge M
I/O Aggregator are used with a 4 x 10Gb breakout cable to provide four 10Gb links for network
traffic from each 40GbE port. Out of the 4 x 10Gb links from each 40GbE port on each
PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator, two links connect to one of the Force10 S4810 switches and the
other two links connect to the other Force10 S4810 switch. Due to this design, each PowerEdge
M1000e chassis with two PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator modules will have total of 16 x 10Gb
links to the two Force10 S4810 switches. This design ensures load balancing while maintaining
redundancy.
 Connectivity between the Dell PowerEdge R620 rack servers and Force10 S4810 switches:
Both of the PowerEdge R620 servers have two 10Gb connections to the Force10 S4810 switches
through one Broadcom 57810 Dual Port 10Gb Network Adapter in each of the PowerEdge R620
servers.
Connectivity between the two converged network switches: The two Force10 S4810 switches are
connected using Inter Switch Links (ISLs) using two 40 Gbps QSFP+ links. Virtual Link Trunking (VLT) is
configured between the two Force10 S4810 switches. This design eliminates the need for Spanning
Tree-based networks; and also provides redundancy as well as active-active full bandwidth utilization
on all links.
Connectivity between the converged network switches and iSCSI storage arrays: Each EqualLogic
PS6110 array in Active System 800v uses two controllers. The 10Gb SFP+ port on each EqualLogic
controller is connected to the Force10 S4810 switches. This dual controller configuration provides high
availability and load balancing.
Figure 4 below illustrates the resultant logical converged network connectivity within the Active
System 800v solution.