Administrator Guide

Hardware Owner's Manual or Dell Chassis Management Controller (CMC) User’s Guide on the Dell Support website at
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pem/en/index.htm.
Other Auto-Configured Settings
After the Aggregator powers on, it auto-configures and is operational with software features enabled, including:
● VLANs: All ports are configured as members of all (4094) VLANs. All VLANs are up and can send or receive layer 2 traffic.
For more information, refer to VLANs.
● Data Center Bridging Capability Exchange Protocol (DCBX)
● Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity
● FCoE Initiation Protocol (FIP) snooping
● Hybrid ports: Ports are administratively up and auto-configured to operate as hybrid ports to transmit tagged and untagged
VLAN traffic.
● iSCSI optimization
● IGMP snooping
● Jumbo frames: Ports are set to a maximum MTU of 12,000 bytes by default.
● Link aggregation: All uplink ports are configured in a single LAG (LAG 128).
● Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP): Enabled on all ports.
● Link tracking: Enables server-facing links to be brought up only if the uplink port-channel (LAG 128) is up.
● Stacking: Stacking is supported only on the 40GbE ports on the base module. A single stack is limited to six Aggregators in
the same chassis. Up to three stacks are supported in an M1000e chassis. To configure a switch stack, you must use the
CLI. For more information, refer to Stacking Commands.
DCB Support
DCB enhancements for data center networks are supported to eliminate packet loss and provision links with required bandwidth.
The Aggregator provides zero-touch configuration for DCB. The Aggregator auto-configures DCBX port roles to match the
DCBX configuration in the ToR switches to which it connects through its uplink ports.
The Aggregator supports DCB only in standalone mode and not in the stacking mode.
FCoE Connectivity
Many data centers use Fibre Channel (FC) in storage area networks (SANs). Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) encapsulates
Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks.
On an Aggregator, the internal ports support FCoE connectivity and connect to the converged network adapter (CNA) in blade
servers. FCoE allows Fibre Channel to use 10-Gigabit Ethernet networks while preserving the Fibre Channel protocol.
The Aggregator also provides zero-touch configuration for FCoE configuration. The Aggregator auto-configures to match the
FCoE settings used in the ToR switches to which it connects through its uplink ports.
iSCSI Operation
Support for iSCSI traffic is turned on by default when the Aggregator powers up. No configuration is required.
When the Aggregator powers up, it monitors known TCP ports for iSCSI storage devices on all interfaces. When a session is
detected, an entry is created and monitored as long as the session is active.
The Aggregator also detects iSCSI storage devices on all interfaces and auto-configures to optimize performance. Performance
optimization operations, such as Jumbo frame size support, and disabling storm control on interfaces connected to an iSCSI
equallogic (EQL) storage device, are applied automatically.
CLI configuration is necessary only when the configuration includes iSCSI storage devices that cannot be automatically detected
and when non-default QoS handling is required.
Before You Start
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