Technical information

June 2012 Dell EqualLogic Configuration Guide v13.2 59
Placing the blade IO modules in the same fabric does remove one aspect of high availability in that
each blade server will have both of the SAN ports located on the same fabric mezzanine card. This
creates a potential single point of failure if the mezzanine card as a whole fails.
One alternative configuration would be to place the two blade IO modules into enclosure slots
associated with two different enclosure fabrics (B1 and C1 for example). This has the advantage that
each blade server will have its Ethernet ports connected to these blade IO modules on two different
mezzanine cards. This ensures that even if a single mezzanine card fails, there is still an active port on
the SAN network.
Table 25 and Table 26 illustrate the stacking strategies between the two IO modules in each of these
two configurations as described.
Table 25 Single M1000e Enclosure Stacking Single Fabric
Single Fabric Stacked Configuration
Advantages Concerns
•
Consistent M1000e fabric management that
adheres to M1000e recommended
practices for blade IO configuration
•
All blade server Ethernet ports used for SAN
reside on the same mezzanine card
resulting in a potential single point of failure
• Upgrading switch FW will require scheduled
downtime for SAN network