PowerEdge MX7000 Chassis
Management Networking Cabling
Tech Note by:
Brian Claggett
Michael E. Brown
SUMMARY
The purpose of this whitepaper
is to describe the new and
improved features of the
MX7000 chassis management
network, provide recommended
network cabling diagrams, and
show the fault tolerant
capabilities of the new network
design in the new Dell EMC 14G
MX7000 chassis.
The MX7000 chassis features
dual redundant management
modules, with each
management module featuring
two management network ports,
for a total of 4 management
network ports on the chassis.
The management network is
meant to provide network
connections for chassis
management that is separate
from the customer data network.
There are several new and
improved design points for this
network compared to previous
generation chassis that
significantly impact how these
new chassis should be cabled
and managed.
New Feature: Automatic Uplink Detection
The first thing to notice about the MX7000 network physical chassis is labelling:
as opposed to the older M1000e chassis, you will notice that the management
ports are not labelled “STK” (stacking) or GB (uplink), but rather just GB 1 and
GB 2. Because of the new automatic
detection features in MX7000, you can
use any port for stacking and/or uplink,
and the management module will
automatically detect each port to
determine if it is a stacking or uplink
port.
Figure 1 – MX7000 Management Module
New Feature: Network Loop Prevention
When cabling chassis in a stack, you will notice is what appear to be
connections forming network loops and redundant connections between the
chassis. The management modules will automatically detect redundant ports
between chassis and will block packets automatically to prevent network loops
from forming.
There are a couple points worth noting about this feature. First, when you stack
chassis and cable them together, only one uplink will ever forward traffic out of
the stack. The recommended cabling configuration has two links from chassis to
the top of rack switch. However, if you have the recommended redundant
connections out of the stack, all of the “extra” redundant connections will be in a
“blocking” state, i.e. Link-UP, but not forwarding network traffic. If the system
detects a link failure of the active link, the chassis will automatically fail over to
the redundant links.
Cabling an Individual Chassis
When cabling an individual
chassis, connect one
network cable from each
management module to
the data center top of rack
switch. Ensure that both
ports on the top of rack
switch are enabled and on
the same network and
VLAN.
Figure 2 – Schematic representation of single chassis connection
