Dell PowerStore 9000X User guide

Dell EMC PowerStore

Networking Guide for PowerStore X Models

Version 2.x

June 2021

Rev. A01

Notes, cautions, and warnings

NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.

CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid

the problem.

WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.

Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Additional Resources.....................................................................................................................5

Chapter 1: Overview...................................................................................................................... 6

PowerStore X model appliance overview...................................................................................................................... 6

Supported switches............................................................................................................................................................ 6

Chapter 2: Prepare to configure switches and networks................................................................8

PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet................................................................................. 8

Initial Configuration Worksheet...................................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 3: PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements.........................................14

Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch connectivity options and requirements .....................................................................14

Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch to ToR switch (L2) connectivity options.............................................................14

Node to Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch connectivity................................................................................................ 18

PowerStore X model networks.......................................................................................................................................19

PowerStore X model networks VLAN options............................................................................................................ 21

IP addresses for network configuration ...................................................................................................................... 21

Chapter 4: Configuring with Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switches.......................... 23

Configuring with Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switches overview .............................................. 23

Get the completed Network Setup Preparation Worksheet.................................................................................. 23

Establish a terminal session to the switch.................................................................................................................. 25

Validate the switch version and licensing....................................................................................................................26

Configure general settings on the Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches.......................................................................... 27

Configure PowerStore X model network VLANs on the switch............................................................................ 28

Configure Virtual Link Trunking interconnect (VLTi) .............................................................................................. 29

Configure port interfaces for PowerStore X model node connectivity.......................................................... 31

Configure the uplink ports on the Top of the Rack (ToR) switches.................................................................... 32

Chapter 5: PowerStore X model: Cabling the appliance to the switches...................................... 34

Cable the base enclosure to the ToR switches......................................................................................................... 34

Cable the ToR switches together................................................................................................................................. 35

Cable the Top-of-Rack switches to the core uplinks...............................................................................................36

Chapter 6: Validate switch and network configuration................................................................. 37

Validate configuration on the Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches.................................................................................. 37

Network Validation Tool for PowerStore.................................................................................................................... 39

Chapter 7: Discovering PowerStore Appliances........................................................................... 40

Discovery with a direct connection.............................................................................................................................. 40

Discovery with a remote connection.............................................................................................................................41

Remote discovery using Discovery Tool................................................................................................................. 41

Remote discovery with a static IP address............................................................................................................41

Contents

Contents 3

Chapter 8: Initial configuration of the PowerStore X model appliance......................................... 43

Initial Configuration Wizard.............................................................................................................................................43

Get your completed Initial Configuration Worksheet .............................................................................................. 44

Appendix A: Expand a Storage network to run across multiple ports............................................48

Expand a Storage network..............................................................................................................................................48

Cable the nodes to the ToR switches.................................................................................................................... 49

Configure the VLAN on the ToR switches............................................................................................................50

Add IP addresses and map the Storage networks to the virtual ports.......................................................... 50

Appendix B: Create an additional Storage network...................................................................... 52

Create a new Storage network......................................................................................................................................52

Cable the nodes to the ToR switches.................................................................................................................... 53

Configure a Storage network on the ToR switches........................................................................................... 54

Create an additional Storage network in PowerStore Manager...................................................................... 54

Appendix C: Other Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switch configuration operations..... 56

Reset the switch to factory settings........................................................................................................................... 56

Running configuration of Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON ToR switches ........................................56

4

Contents

As part of an improvement effort, revisions of the software and hardware are periodically released. Some functions that are

described in this document are not supported by all versions of the software or hardware currently in use. The product release

notes provide the most up-to-date information about product features. Contact your service provider if a product does not

function properly or does not function as described in this document.

Where to get help

Support, product, and licensing information can be obtained as follows:

● Product information

For product and feature documentation or release notes, go to the PowerStore Documentation page at https://

www.dell.com/powerstoredocs.

● Troubleshooting

For information about products, software updates, licensing, and service, go to https://www.dell.com/support and locate

the appropriate product support page.

● Technical support

For technical support and service requests, go to https://www.dell.com/support and locate the Service Requests page.

To open a service request, you must have a valid support agreement. Contact your Sales Representative for details about

obtaining a valid support agreement or to answer any questions about your account.

Preface

Additional Resources 5

Overview

The following information is included in this chapter.

Topics:

• PowerStore X model appliance overview

• Supported switches

PowerStore X model appliance overview

PowerStore X model supports block (SAN-only), and vVol workloads with a hypervisor installed on the system. The system

software is deployed on the hypervisor, which enables deployment of virtual machines (VMs) and customer applications within

the hardware.

PowerStore X model model numbers:

● 1000X

● 3000X

● 5000X

● 7000X

● 9000X

NOTE:

File (network attached storage (NAS)) services are not supported on this model. File services are supported on

PowerStore T model appliances.

Supporting documentation

In addition to reading through this document, you should also read through the following guides, prior to configuring your

switches and networks:

● PowerStore Quick Start Guide

● PowerStore Planning Guide

● PowerStore Hardware Information Guide

Supported switches

PowerStore can be purchased with the following Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series running OS10 Enterprise Edition (OS10EE).

● S4148F-ON

● S4148T-ON

● S5248F-ON

The planning, and requirements sections of this guide can be used to prepare to deploy PowerStore appliance with any

supported switch. The configuration steps provided in this guide, however, are specific steps for deploying PowerStore with Dell

EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switches.

If you will not be deploying PowerStore with Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switches, see the PowerStore Third-party

Switch Simple Support Matrix for the list of supported switches. The Third-party Switch Simple Support Matrix is available

from Dell EMC eLab Navigator at: https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/modernHomeSSM. If you are unable to access the

Third-party Switch Simple Support Matrix, please contact your service provider.

For further information about the Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series running Operating System 10 Enterprise Edition (OS10EE) refer

to the following documents.

1

6 Overview

Table 1. PowerSwitch documentation resources

Document Reference Location

Dell EMC PowerSwitch S4100-

ON Series Installation Guide

PowerSwitch site preparation

requirements, step-by-step procedures

for rack mounting and desk mounting,

inserting modules, and connecting to a

power source.

For Dell EMC S4148F-ON, and S4148T-

ON switches go to the Dell

EMC PoweSwitch S4148-ON/S4148T-ON/

S4148FE-ON Documentation page at:

https://www.dell.com/support/

home/us/en/04/product-support/product/

networking-s4148f-on/docs

For Dell EMC S5248F-ON switches go to the

PowerSwitch S5248F-ON Documentation

page at:

https://www.dell.com/support/

home/us/en/04/product-support/product/

networking-s5248f-on/docs

S5200F-ON Series Installation

Guide

OS10 Enterprise Edition User

Guide

Contains the necessary steps to install

the operating system, access the switch

remotely, and run the switch commands.

Overview 7

Prepare to configure switches and networks

This chapter contains the following information.

Topics:

• PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet

• Initial Configuration Worksheet

PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation

Worksheet

Work with your network administrator to complete the Network Setup Preparation Worksheet to reserve the necessary

information to configure the switches.

It is recommended that you work with your network administrator to also complete the Initial Configuration Worksheet while

completing the Network Setup Preparation Worksheet.

For a sample of a Network Setup Preparation Worksheet completed for Dell EMC PowerSwitch Series S4148-ON switches see,

PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet completed example.

Table 2. PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet (blank)

Step Step details Notes

1. Print this table to record the reserved resources.

2. Print out the Initial Configuration Worksheet to record the additional network resources you will need to create

networks in PowerStore X model the first time you create a cluster.

3. Determine which of the Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch ports will be connected to the PowerStore X model appliance base

enclosure nodes.

At a minimum, ports 0 and 1 of the 4-port card must be connected to the ToR switches. When cabling the nodes to the

ToR switches:

● Port 0 and Port 1 on the same node must connect to opposite switches

● Port 0 on Node A, and Port 0 on Node B must connect to opposite switches

● Port 1 on Node A, and Port 1 on Node B must connect to opposite switches

Record the ToR switch ports required to connect to:

Node A, Port 0 to

Node A, Port 1 to

Node B, Port 0 to

Node B, Port 1 to

4. Record the switch port to use for discovery while

configuring your switches.

5. Record the VLAN IDs that will be used for system management:

Remote Discovery (untagged)

Management (tagged)

6. Record the VLAN IDs that will be used for production:

Storage network (tagged)

2

8 Prepare to configure switches and networks

Table 2. PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet (blank) (continued)

Step Step details Notes

vMotion (tagged)

Internal (untagged)

7. Reserve and record the IP addresses necessary to configure the switch below:

Management IP address for switch 1

Management IP address for switch 2

Default gateway

NTP server

8. Dell EMC supports deploying PowerStore X model with two Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches with a layer 2 interconnect

link.

Choose which type of layer 2 interconnect you will use:

Highly Recommended: Multi-chassis Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG)

If you will be using MC-LAG, record the ports you will use to connect the switches together.

Switch to switch port pair 1

Switch to switch port pair 2

Alternatively, L2 uplinks without MC-LAG

9. If using MC-LAG, enter the Domain ID.

10 If using VLT for the Layer 2 interconnect, record the:

VLT MAC address to use for both switch 1 and switch 2.

Use the same VLT MAC address for switch 1 and switch

2.

NOTE: You cannot use all zeros

(00:00:00:00:00) for the VLT MAC address.

VLT priority for switch 1

VLT priority for switch 2

11. Record the ports on the ToR switches that will be used to connect to the uplinks.

Uplink A to ToR 1

Uplink B to ToR 1

Uplink A to ToR 2

Uplink B to ToR 2

12. Record the port channel ID used for connectivity between the ToR switches, and the uplinks.

If deploying with MC-LAG, enter the port channel ID for

the uplink.

Only a single port channel ID is required for MC-LAG.

Alternatively, record the uplink port channel IDs required for L2 uplinks without MC-LAG.

L2 uplinks without MC-LAG connectivity requires two port channel IDs.

1. Port channel ID for L2 uplinks without MC-LAG

2. Port channel ID for L2 uplinks without MC-LAG

13. As a best practice it is recommended to add a spanning tree protocol to the ToR switches. Record the spanning tree

protocols to set on each switch.

Prepare to configure switches and networks 9

Table 2. PowerStore X model Network Setup Preparation Worksheet (blank) (continued)

Step Step details Notes

Spanning tree protocol for ToR switch 1

Spanning tree protocol for ToR switch 2

14. Once you have completed steps above, you have the necessary information to configure the switches. Continue to

work with your network administrator to complete the Initial Configuration Worksheet now to ensure that:

● Your network configuration on the switch aligns with the network configuration that will be done in PowerStore X

model.

● You reserve the necessary network resources to complete deployment of PowerStore X model networks.

15. Determine if you will use a direct connection or a remote connection to discover your PowerStore.

Once you have successfully discovered your PowerStore, you will be guided through the Initial Configuration Wizard

to create your PowerStore cluster.

Initial Configuration Worksheet

Work with your network administrator to complete the Initial Configuration Worksheet. Once completed the worksheet will

provide the necessary information to setup up the networks during initial configuration of PowerStore X model.

It is recommended that you work with your network administrator to also complete the Network Setup Preparation Worksheet

while completing the Initial Configuration Worksheet.

For a sample of a completed Initial Configuration Worksheet see, Initial Configuration Worksheet completed example for

PowerStore X model.

Table 3. Initial Configuration Worksheet (blank)

Initial Login Information

Use the following default user credentials when you log in to the PowerStore Manager for the first time.

You must enter a new admin password to complete initial configuration of the PowerStore X model cluster.

Default Username admin

Default Password Password123# New Admin Password

Cluster Details

For resource management, efficiency, and availability purposes, appliances act as a single component called cluster.

Cluster Name

Appliance Service Tags

Enter the service tag. The service tag appears

on the black tag on the front of the base

enclosure. When the systems arrive identify

the base enclosures that you want to configure

as a cluster and record their service tags.

Drive Failure Tolerance Level

Next to each appliance select the drive failure

tolerance level you want to set. The drive

failure tolerance level indicates the amount

of concurrent drive failures the appliance can

sustain without causing a data unavailable

or data loss event. The single drive fault

tolerance level meets availability requirements

for all drive types and capacity points. But

the double drive failure tolerance can provide

higher resiliency and protection.

Single Drive Failure

or

Double Drive Failure

Single Drive Failure

or

Double Drive Failure

Single Drive Failure

or

Double Drive Failure

Single Drive Failure

or

Double Drive Failure

10 Prepare to configure switches and networks

Table 3. Initial Configuration Worksheet (blank) (continued)

Ensure that there are at least the following

number of SSD drives in the enclosure:

● At least 6 for single drive failure tolerance

● 7 for double drive failure tolerance

NOTE: Once set, the drive failure

tolerance level for an appliance cannot be

changed.

Networks

Your cluster requires a dedicated set of IP addresses for each type of network.

NOTE: VLAN information for management, storage, and vMotion networks are optional and default to 0. It is a marker

used to indicate that the network traffic is not tagged and native VLAN is applied through the switch. For better security

and performance, it is recommended that you specify a unique VLAN information for each type of network.

If you are deploying into a single VLAN, it is recommended that you configure a unique subnet for each type of network.

Cluster IP Address

Management Network

Connects the cluster to services such as DNS and NTP. The IP addresses in the management network are used to address the

cluster, appliances, controllers, and internal hosts.

VLAN

(Optional, Defaults to 0)

Netmask/Prefix

Length

Gateway IP Addresses

5 IPs for each PowerStore X

model Appliance

Storage Network

Enables clients to access the storage in the cluster. The IP addresses in the storage network are used for iSCSI targets, iSCSI

initiators, and the Global Storage Discovery IP address.

At a minimum, you need 6 IP addresses for each PowerStore X model appliance. However, for performance improvements, it is

highly recommended that you have a minimum of 8 IP addresses for each PowerStore X model appliance.

If you choose to create a Global Storage Discovery IP Address, you will need a minimum of 7 IP addresses, and a recommended

9 IP addresses for each appliance.

VLAN

(Optional, Defaults to 0)

Netmask/Prefix

Length

Gateway IP Addresses

Global Storage Discovery IP Address

It is recommended that you choose to create this IP address. It is used as the single highly

available floating IP address for hosts to easily discover storage from your cluster.

If you choose to configure the Global Storage Discovery IP address, the last IP address you

specify for the Storage Network is used as the Global Storage Discovery IP address.

Yes or No

vMotion Network

Enables users to migrate virtual machines within the vSphere cluster. The IP addresses in the vMotion network are used for a

dedicated network that transfer virtual machines between appliances.

VLAN

(Optional, Defaults to 0)

Netmask/Prefix

Length

Gateway IP Addresses

2 IPs for each PowerStore X

model Appliance

Prepare to configure switches and networks 11

Table 3. Initial Configuration Worksheet (blank) (continued)

Infrastructure Services

Record IP addresses for your DNS and NTP servers. It is recommended that you specify at least two addresses for DNS and

NTP servers each.

DNS Server

NTP Server

Physical/Top-of-Rack Switch Information

Record the switch IP addresses to validate the cabling and switch settings before the cluster is configured. The switch

credentials provide PowerStore X modelwith read-only access to the switches to validate that the configuration on the

switches will support the cluster networks.

Switch Name

Protocol (SSH/SNMP)

IP Address

Port

SSH Username

Switch Password

Hypervisor

Record your existing vCenter administrator login credentials. The initial configuration workflow automatically creates a

datacenter and ESXi cluster, and associates them with your cluster.

NOTE: Ensure that the vCenter Server is accessible on the network.

Your vCenter information

vCenter Server IP Address/Host Name

vCenter Administrator Username

vCenter Administrator Password

New or Existing Datacenter Name

vCenter Cluster Name (ESXi Cluster Name)

PowerStore X model appliance Admin Credentials

Enter the PowerStore X model appliance administrator credentials for vCenter to access the PowerStore X model appliance.

Admin Username

Password This is the user-defined password provided after initial log in to the PowerStore X

model appliance.

Optimization

Optional setting that can optimize the performance of your cluster.

Storage MTU Size

The maximum packet size (in bytes) that can be sent over the network interface. It is

recommended that you set the MTU to 9000 to enable jumbo Frames over the network.

iSCSI IP Addresses

Optionally, specify up to 2 additional IP addresses to configure a second iSCSI interface.

SupportAssist (Optional)

12 Prepare to configure switches and networks

Table 3. Initial Configuration Worksheet (blank) (continued)

SupportAssist is a secure, automated health and system monitoring capability. It sends notifications to Dell EMC, enables

remote support, and sends data to CloudIQ. Once your cluster is created successfully, you can connect to Dell EMC

SupportAssist. If you already have SupportAssist enabled, record the associated account details and the gateway or proxy

IP information here.

Tip: The default port number Dell EMC uses is 9443.

Gateway or Proxy Server IP Address

Gateway or Proxy Server Port

Proxy Server User Credentials

(Not applicable for Gateway Connect)

Policy Manager IP Address and Port

(Not applicable for Direct Connect without remote access or Gateway

Connect)

Prepare to configure switches and networks 13

PowerStore X model: Network configuration

requirements

This chapter includes the following information.

Topics:

• Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch connectivity options and requirements

• PowerStore X model networks

• PowerStore X model networks VLAN options

• IP addresses for network configuration

Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch connectivity options and

requirements

PowerStore requires connectivity to a pair of Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches.

This section describes the requirements for:

● Switch to switch (L2) connectivity

● Node to ToR switch connectivity

Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch to ToR switch (L2) connectivity options

Use one of the following options to connect the two ToR switches together.

Table 4. ToR switch to ToR switch interconnect options

Switch interconnect

options

Recommendation

1. Multi-chassis Link

Aggregation Group (MC-LAG)

Dell highly recommends using MC-LAG for connectivity between the switches.

2. L2 Uplinks without MC-LAG If MC-LAG is not an option, then the next best recommended connectivity between the

switches is to use reliable L2 uplinks.

NOTE: If neither of the switch interconnect options are available then you can use a Direct Trunk Link, but this is not

recommended.

Multi-chassis Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG) interconnect

It is highly recommended that you deploy PowerStore with an MC-LAG interconnect between the two ToR switches.

In an MC-LAG environment, the two switches are treated as one logical switch. This allows you to add all the uplinks from both

switches into a single port channel that will span the MC-LAG.

3

14 PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

Node BNode A

Top of Rack

Switch 2

Top of Rack

Switch 1

Port 0 Port 1 Port 1 Port 0

10 GbLegend: 1 Gb

Upstream

Switch 2

Upstream

Switch 1

PowerStore T Appliance

Port Channel

MC-LAG

Interconnect

PowerStore Network Topology with

Top of Rack Switches and MC-LAG

Interconnect

Figure 1. ToR switches with MC-LAG interconnect

PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

15

NOTE: Port location for the reliable high speed uplinks may change depending on switch vendor or model.

MC-LAG is a switch interconnection technology that joins a number of independent Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches into a single

virtual chassis. MC-LAG allows the link aggregation (LAG) port groups to span multiple chassis, enabling better resilience of

the LAG connection. Additionally, MC-LAG enables traffic going from switch to switch using the full bandwidth of the available

connection, without using spanning tree protocol (STP), which would disable some links to prevent loops.

MC-LAG is a general name for the technology, however certain vendors use their own proprietary terminology to define

MC-LAG connectivity.

Table 5. Vendor specific MC-LAG technology

Vendor Proprietary MC-LAG technology

Dell Virtual Link Trunking (VLT)

Cisco Virtual PortChannel (vPC)

Brocade Multi-Chassis Trunking (MCT)

NOTE: Refer to your vendor's documentation to determine their technology for MC-LAG.

MC-LAG connectivity requirements are:

● A minimum of two connection cables in parallel with a high speed reliable connection.

● Connections must be made through the high speed ports on the switch. Verify with your switch provider documentation

where the high speed ports are located on your switch.

● Use two cables that support connectivity between the high speed ports. For example 100Gbps Direct Attached Cables

(DAC) would be required to connect the MC-LAG ports together.

L2 Uplinks without MC-LAG

Using L2 (Ethernet level) uplinks without an MC-LAG connection to connect the ToR switches is an acceptable alternative to

MC-LAG for PowerStore deployments.

With a non-MC-LAG L2 connection you can port-channel the uplinks on each physical switch, which requires creating two

port-channels instead of one.

16

PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

Node BNode A

Top of Rack

Switch 2

Top of Rack

Switch 1

Port 0 Port 1 Port 1 Port 0

10 GbLegend: 1 Gb

Upstream

Switch 2

Upstream

Switch 1

PowerStore T Appliance

Port Channels

PowerStore Network Topology

with a no MC-LAG interconnect

Figure 2. ToR switches with a non-MC-LAG L2 interconnect

PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

17

NOTE: Port location for the reliable high speed uplinks may change depending on switch vendor or model.

Non-MC-LAG L2 connectivity requires redundant, high speed connections.

Node to Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch connectivity

Deploying with Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches requires that each of the base enclosure appliance nodes have at least one

connection to each of the ToR switches to provide redundancy at the NIC and switch levels.

Figure 3. Node to ToR switch cabling

When cabling the nodes to the switches:

● Port 0 and Port 1 on the same node must connect to opposite switches

● Port 0 on Node A, and Port 0 on Node B must connect to opposite switches

● Port 1 on Node A, and Port 1 on Node B must connect to opposite switches

18

PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

PowerStore X model networks

PowerStore X model requires all networks to be unique. It is highly recommended to deploy PowerStore X model with multiple

and unique VLANs to separate the traffic. However, if only one VLAN is available, you have the option to deploy PowerStore X

model with a single VLAN and multiple unique subnets as demonstrated below.

Figure 4. PowerStore X model network traffic

Ensure that the PowerStore X model interfaces are able to communicate to each other through the VLANs shown above.

Consult your network vendor documents to ensure all proper L2 and/or L3 traffic is being routed properly for all networks that

PowerStore X model is utilizing.

Table 6. PowerStore X model networks

Network Types of traffic Node transport ports

Initial discovery using the PowerStore Discovery Utility. First port of the 4 port card

Management network traffic which provides access to:

● Infrastructure services such as DNS, NTP, and SMTP.

● PowerStore REST API, PowerStore Manager, and PowerStore

CLI

● SupportAssist

● vCenter

First 2 ports of the 4 port card

(active/active)

Storage network (block) traffic and external data mobility traffic

such as replication, and storage import. PowerStore iSCSI target

portals for front-end traffic.

First port of the 4-port card is

active, and the second port is used

for backup.

ESXi iSCSI initiator traffic. First 2 ports of the 4 port card

Network used for virtual machine (VM) migration. First port of the 4-port card is

active, and the second port is used

for backup

The internal network communication occurs on the Native VLAN.

The internal network is not currently used in this release.

First 2 ports of the 4-port card

PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements 19

Network configuration in PowerStore

All PowerStore networks must be configured on the switch. Management, Storage, and vMotion networks are configured in

PowerStore the first time you create a cluster through the PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard (ICW).

20 PowerStore X model: Network configuration requirements

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