Dell M1000e

The Dell blade server solutions are built around their new M1000e enclosure that can hold their complete range of server blades and an extensive range of I/O modules like ethernet switches, fibre-channel switches etc.

The M1000e fits in a 19" server-rack and is 10 Rack units high (44 cm), 17,6" wide (44,7 cm) and 75,4 cm deep. The empty blade enclose weighs 44,5 kg while a fully loaded system can weigh up to 178,8 kg.^[1]

On the front the servers are inserted while at the backside the power-supplies and I/O modules are attached. A blade enclosure offers centralized management for the servers and I/O systems of the blade-system. Most servers used in the blade-system offer a iDRAC card and you can connect to each servers iDRAC via the M1000e management system. It is also possible to connect a virtual KVM switch to have access to the main-console of each installed server.

Available server-blades

A M1000e holds up to 16 half-height blades or 8 full-height blades.

Power Edge M610

A half-height server with a quad-core or six-core Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon CPU and up to 192 Gb RAM. A maximum of two on-blade hot-pluggable 2.5" hard-disks or SSD's and a choice of built-in NIC's for Ethernet or CNA, Fiber Channel or InfiniBand. The server has the Intel 5520 chipset and a Matrox G200 video card^[2]

Power Edge M710

A full-height server with a quad-core or sic-core Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon CPU and up to 192 Gb RAM. A maxumum of four on-blade hot-pluggable 2,5" hard-disks or SSD's and a choise of built-in NIC's for ethernet or CNA, fibre channel or InfiniBand. The videocard is a Matrox G200.The server has the Intel 5520 chipset^[3]

Power Edge M805

A full-height server with up to a six-core AMD Opteron CPU, 128Gb RAM and two hot-swappable 2,5" hard-drives (spinning or SSD). A choice of built-in NIC's for ethernet or CNA, fibre channel or InfiniBand. The videocard is an ATI RN50.The server has the NVidia MCP55 chipset^[4]

Power Edge M905

A full-height server with up to a six-core AMD Opteron 8000 CPU, 192Gb RAM and two hot-swappable 2,5" hard-drives (spinning or SSD). It utilizes the NVidia MCP55 chipset and a choice of built-in NIC's for ethernet or CNA, fibre channel or InfiniBand^[5]

PowerConnect switches

The Dell PowerConnect switches are modular switches for use in the Dell blade server enclosure M1000e. The M6220, M6348, M8024 and M8024K are all switches in the same family, based on the same fabrics (Broadcom) and running the same firmware-version.^[6]

All the M-series switches are OSI layer 3 capable: so you can also say that these devices are routers with built-in layer 2 functions.

The most important difference between the M-series switches and the Dell PowerConnect classic switches (e.g. the 8024 model is the fact that most interfaces are internal interfaces that connect to the blade-servers via the midplane of the enclosure. Also the M-series can't be running outside the enclosure: it will only work when inserted in the enclosure

Capabilities

All M-series switches offer a broad range of Data Link Layer and Network Layer capabilities^[6]

Data Link Layer

Some of the Layer2 capabilities are:

• IEEE 802.3 - the switches are ethernet switches
• IEEE 802.1Q - VLAN tagging and trunking
• IEEE 802.1X - Port security and authentication
• IEEE 802.3X - flow control
• Jumbo frame support: allowing the use of larfe farmes, mainly used for iSCSI operation
• iSCI optimasation: easier configuration of the iSCSI VLAN
• Auto-VOIP - supports easier configuration for VOIP in small networks
• DHCP snooping and the associated (security) features as IPSG and Dynamic Arp Inspection
• Spanning Tree Protocol - STP, RSTP, MSTP, portfast features
• DHCP support -BOOTP, DHCP and other broadcast can be redirected to DHCP servers and the DHCP conversations can be monitored for use by the advanced security features (DHCP snooping)
• Several discovery-protocol settings such as ISDP which is the industry-standard version of Cisco Discovery Protocol, LLDP or IEEE 802.1AB and the extension to this: LLDP-MED
• Layer2 Multicasting
• Ling Agregation or LAG: static and dynamic (=LACP)

Network Layer

The PowerConnect M-series switches offer a wide range of routing-capabilities. Some of the standards supported on the PowerConnect M-series:

• Routing: static, connected (routes automatically added to the routing-table for the subnet of each VLAN IP interface), OSPF, OSPFv3, RIP
• Supports IPv4 and IPv6 routing
• VRRP: Virtual Router Redundancy
• Differentiated Services
• Class of Service
• IPv4 and IPv6 Multicast
• DiffServ
• IRDP: Routing Discovery Protocol

I/O cards

A M1000e enclosure can hold up to 6 switches or other I/O cards.
Besides the M-series switches mentioned below the following I/O modules are available or usable in a Dell M1000e enclosure:

• Cisco Catalyst 3032, 3130G and 3130X switches
• Ethernet passthrough modules that bring internal server-interfaces to an external interface at the back of the enclosure.
• Brocade FC switch for Fibre Channel based Storage area network
• InfiniBand is available for High-performance computing

Ethernet Mezzanine cards

Standard blade-servers have one or more built in gigabit or 10 Gb internal NIC's that connect to the 'default' switch-slot in the enclosure (often blade-servers also offer one or more external NIC interfaces at the front of the blade) but if you want to server to have more physical (internal) interfaces or connect to different switch-blades in the enclosure you can place extra mezzanine cards on the blade. The same applies when you want to add a fibre-channel HBA or a FCoE CNA (=Converged Network Adapter)interface. Dell offers the following (converged) ethernet mezzanine cards for their PowerEdge blades: ^[7]

• Broadcom 57712 dual-port CNA
• Brocade BR1741M-k CNA
• Mellanox ConnectX-2 dual 10Gb card
• Intel dual port 10Gb ethernet
• Intel Quad port 1Gb ethernet
• Intel Quad port 1Gb ethernet with virtualisation technology and iSCSI acceleration features
• Broadcom NetXtreme II 5709 dual and quad port gigabit ethernet (dual port with iSCSI offloading features)
• Broadcom NetXtreme II 5711 dual port 10Gb ethernet with iSCSI offloading features

Non-ethernet cards

Apart from the above ethernet and converged ethernet cards the following mezzanine cards are available for fibre channel and InfiniBand^[7]

• Emulex LightPulse LPe1105-M4 HBA
• Mellanox ConnectX IB MDI Dual-Port InfiniBand Mezzanine Card
• QLogic SANblade HBA
• SANsurfer Pro

PowerConnect M-series switches

PowerConnect M5424

This is a switch in the B-series: a Brocade FCoE switch. See also the Brocade B-series lemma

PowerConnect M6220

This is a 20 port switch: 16 internal and 4 external gigabit ethernet interfaces and the option to extend it with up to four 10Gb external interfaces for uplinks.

PowerConnect M6348

This is a 48 port switch: 32 internal 1Gb interfaces (two per serverblade) and 16 external copper (RJ45) gigabit interfaces. There are also two SFP+ slots for 10Gb uplinks and two CX4 slots that can either be used for two extra 10Gb uplinks or to stack several M6348's blades in one logical switch.

PowerConnect M8024 and 8024k

The M8024 and 8024k offer 16 internal autosensing 1 or 10Gb inerfaces and up to 8 external ports via two I/O modules each of which can offer: 4 x 10Gb SFP+ slots, 3 x CX4 10Gb (only) copper or 2 x 10G BaseT 1/10 Gb RJ-45 interfaces.

The non-classic I/O devices

The above PowerConnect series switches are PowerConnect classic switches based on Broadcom hardware and are all running the same firmware. For the M1000e enclosure Dell also offers the following I/O systems:

PowerConnect M8428k

This is the Fibre Channel over Ethernet blade-switch and based on a Brocade switch. It offers 16 internal 1/10Gb ports, 8 external 10Gb interfaces and 4 Fibre Channel interfaces to connect to a SAN controller or central Fibre Channel switch.
The switch runs Brocade FC firmware for the fabric and fibre-channel configuration^[8]

Passthrough modules

There are three models available:

• 32 port 10/100/1000 Mbit/s gigabit ethernet pass-through card: connects 16 internal ethernet interfaces (1 per blade) to an external RJ45 10/100/1000 Mbit/s copper port^[9]

• 32 port 10 Gb NIC version supports 16 internal 10Gb ports with 16 external SFP+ slots
• 32 port 10 Gb CNA version supports 16 internal 10Gb CNA ports with 16 external CNA's^[10]

Cisco Catalyst

There are 3 Cisco Catalyst switches available for use in the M1000e chassis:

• Catalyst 3032: 16 internal, 4 external 10/100/1000 interfaces or 4 external SFP modules.

The 3032 only offers basic layer3 routing capabilities with static routes. It is mainly a layer2 switch

• Catalyst 3130G: 16 internal + 4 external 10/100/1000 interfaces or 4 SFP modules. Also 2 high-speed stacking ports available to stack switches (virtual switch)

The 3130G offers two IP IOS versions: basic IP and IP Services Upgrade to offer routing-protocols like RIP, OSPF, EIGRP and BGP^[11]

• Catalyst 3130X: 16 internal + 4 external 10/100/1000 interfaces or 4 SFP modules. for Gb speeds OR 2 SFP+ interfaces for 10Gb uplinks. Also 2 high-speed stacking ports available to stack switches (virtual switch)

The 3130X offers two IP IOS versions: basic IP and IP Services Upgrade to offer routing-protocols like RIP, OSPF, EIGRP and BGP^[12]

References

1. ^ Dell website Tech specs for the M1000e, visited 27 June 2011
2. ^ Tech Specs brochure PowerEdge M610, retrieved 27 June 2011
3. ^ Tech Specs brochure PowerEdge M710, retrieved 27 June 2011
4. ^ Dell brochure PowerEdge M805, retrieved 27 June 2011
5. ^ Dell brochure PowerEdge M805, retrieved 27 June 2011
6. ^ ^{a b} PowerConnect M-series User Guide, firmware 4.x, March 2011, retrieved 26 June 2011
7. ^ ^{a b} Dell supportsite with an Overview manuals for the M1000e chassis, visited 27 June 2011
8. ^ Dell website M8424 Converged 10Gbe switch, visted 26 June 2011
9. ^ Dell website Gigabit passthrough module for M-series, visted 26 June 2011
10. ^ 10Gb Pass Through Specifications, PDF, retrieved 27 June 2011
11. ^ Dell website Catalyst 3130G, visited 27 June 2011
12. ^ Dell website on Catalyst 3130G, visited 26 June 2011