Dell Networking is the new name for the networking portfolio of
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
. In the first half of 2013, Dell started to re-
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
their different existing networking product brands to Dell Networking. Dell Networking will be the new name for the networking-equipment that was known as
Dell PowerConnect
''The current portfolio of PowerConnect switches are now being offered as part of the Dell Networking brand: information on this page is an overview of all current and past PowerConnect switches as per August 2013, but any updates on current portf ...
as well as the
Force10
Dell Force10 (formerly nCore Networks, Force10 Networks), was a United States company that developed and marketed 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches for computer networking to corporate, educational, and governmental customers. It had ...
portfolio.
History
Dell used to be mainly a so-called box-shifter: they produced computers that could (only) be bought directly from Dell, but they didn't offer complete solutions. With the acquisition of
Perot Systems
Perot Systems was an information technology services provider founded in 1988 by a group of investors led by Ross Perot and based in Plano, Texas, United States. Perot Systems provided information technology services in the industries of health ...
Dell entered the market for the -more profitable- services market and also expanded on the software and system-management-market by buying
KACE Networks
Quest KACE, formerly Dell KACE, is a company that specializes in computer appliances for systems management of information technology equipment. It also provides software for security, application virtualization, and systems management produ ...
,
Quest Software
Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a privately held software company headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Quest provides cloud management, software as a service, security, workforce mobility, and backup & recovery. The c ...
,
AppAssure and
Credant Technologies. Other notable acquisitions include storage systems like
EqualLogic
EqualLogic products are iSCSI-based storage area network (SAN) systems marketed by Dell. Dell has 3 different lines of SAN products: EqualLogic, Compellent and Dell PowerVault. Before the acquisition by Dell in January 2008, EqualLogic was an ind ...
,
thin-client
In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...
producer
Wyse
WYSE (970 AM) is a radio station located in Canton, North Carolina, that simulcasts WISE's sports format from Asheville, North Carolina. Owned by the Asheville Radio Group subsidiary of Saga Communications, the station is licensed by the Fede ...
and firewall/security producer
SonicWall
SonicWall is an American cybersecurity company that sells a range of Internet appliances primarily directed at content control and network security. These include devices providing services for network firewalls, unified threat management (UTM) ...
.
Networking
In 2011, Dell took over high-end network-equipment producer
Force10
Dell Force10 (formerly nCore Networks, Force10 Networks), was a United States company that developed and marketed 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches for computer networking to corporate, educational, and governmental customers. It had ...
Networks that mainly produces multi-layer switches for data center environments, bringing Dell to the market for (enterprise and datacenter class) network equipment. Until then Dell didn't have their own network equipment: the switches that were sold under the brand PowerConnect were products designed and built -for Dell- by 3rd parties such as
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
and
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell Technology, Inc. is an American company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which develops and produces semiconductors and related technology. Founded in 1995, the company had more than 6,000 employees as of 2021, with over 10,00 ...
. And Dell also offered existing products from other suppliers with a 'PowerConnect' sticker on it like the B-series for
Brocade
Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and sometimes with gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli", comes from Italian ''broccato'' meaning "embos ...
(Ethernet) switches or J-series for
Juniper
Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...
switches. But by buying Force10 and later network-security provider
SonicWall
SonicWall is an American cybersecurity company that sells a range of Internet appliances primarily directed at content control and network security. These include devices providing services for network firewalls, unified threat management (UTM) ...
the company now has its own
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
networking systems and stopped selling most J- and B-series switches but continued to offer the legacy PowerConnect products made by Broadcom and Marvell with some overlap in the Force10 products.
In 2013 Dell begun the process to fully integrate these two product lines and rebrand the entire portfolio into Dell Networking, all running on
Dell Networking Operating System DNOS or Dell Networking Operating System is a network operating system running on switches from Dell Networking. It is derived from either the PowerConnect OS (DNOS 6.x) or Force10 OS/FTOS (DNOS 9.x) and will be made available for the 10G and faste ...
(instead of
FTOS FTOS or Force10 Operating System is the firmware family used on Force10 Ethernet switches. It has a similar functionality as Cisco's NX-OS or Juniper's Junos. FTOS 10 is running on Debian.
As part of a re-branding strategy of Dell FTOS will be ren ...
and Powerconnect firmware). All new networking products will be marketed under the new name Dell Networking with a standardized naming-convention: Dell Networking -. Most existing PowerConnect products will keep their existing names until they will go 'end of sales' (EOS) when they are replaced by new Dell Networking products or will be rebranded to the new naming convention.
Product families
The Dell Networking products will come in several families. The new naming system will partially follow the existing Force10 naming system: E-series for chassis-based modular (core) switches, C-series for chassis-based datacenter-access switches, S-series rack switches and Z-series for distributed core-switches.
*Z series: Datacenter distributed core switches: 3 models, the original Z9000, 2
RU high with 32 x 40 Gbit/s QSFP+ Ethernet ports and its follow up Z9500, 3RU high with up to 132 x 40Gb QSFP+ slots. and the Z9100 including 100 Gb interfaces.
*C series: Chassis based campus access/core switches: 2 original models, C150 (9RU) and C300 (13RU) for 1 and 10 Gbit/s and the new C9010 system supporting external port-extenders, where specific N-series models can be (re)used as chassis managed port extender.
*E series: Virtualized core chassis-based switches. campus, office or data center aggregation/core switches: 3 models for 1 and 10 Gbit/s aggregation
*
S series S series or Series-S or ''variation'', may refer to:
Transportation
* Bedford S series, trucks
* Chevrolet S-series, pickup trucks
* GMC S-Series, school bus
* International S series, trucks
* International S series (bus chassis)
* S series (T ...
: Fixed form-factor datacenter switches for 1, 10 and 40Gbit/s ethernet
* X series: simple web-managed layer2 or l2+ campus switches based on Marvell networks chipset.
* W series: existing PowerConnect Wireless range which are OEM-versions of the
Aruba Networks
Aruba Networks, formerly known as Aruba Wireless Networks, is a Santa Clara, California-based wireless networking subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
The company was founded in Sunnyvale, California in 2002 by Keerti Melkote and ...
portfolio
* M series:
MXL and MIO modules running
DNOS9.x and the existing
PowerConnect M blade switches for the
Dell M1000e
The Dell blade server products are built around their M1000e enclosure that can hold their server blades, an embedded EqualLogic iSCSI storage area network and I/O modules including Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand switches.
Enclosure
The ...
chassis system including smaller versions of the MIOA/MXL switches for the FX2 mini chassis.
*
N series: Campus access and aggregation switches with models for PoE+ offering 10Gb or 40Gb uplinks to the core. N-series switches run
DNOS6.x on a
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
kernel.
* Legacy
Powerconnect switches
Current portfolio
Below is an overview of the current portfolio of Dell Networking switches, including active models under the PowerConnect name.
Dell PowerConnect
(For older products, not longer in active portfolio, please see the
Dell PowerConnect
''The current portfolio of PowerConnect switches are now being offered as part of the Dell Networking brand: information on this page is an overview of all current and past PowerConnect switches as per August 2013, but any updates on current portf ...
page)
The current portfolio of Dell PowerConnect rack switches consists of the following series:
*
Power connect 2800 series : web-managed(only) 10/100/1000 ethernet switches
*
Power connect 3500 series : managed 10/100 Mb layer 2 switches
*
Power connect 5500 series : managed 10/100/1000 Mb layer 2 switches (with limited layer3 options)
*
Power connect 6200 series : managed multi-layer gigabit Ethernet switches
*
Power connect 7000 series : managed multi-layer gigabit Ethernet switches
*
Power connect 8100 series : managed multi-layer tengigabit Ethernet switches
The PowerConnects 2800, 3500 and 5500 are based on
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell Technology, Inc. is an American company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which develops and produces semiconductors and related technology. Founded in 1995, the company had more than 6,000 employees as of 2021, with over 10,00 ...
equipment while the PowerConnect 6200, 7000, 8100 and the blade-switches PCM6220, PCM6348 and PCM8024(-k) are powered by
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
PowerConnect 2800
The Dell Networking PCT2800 web-managed switches are entry-level Ethernet switches that only offer a web-based GUI management interface. There are 4 models offering between 8 and 48 ports per switch. The interfaces on the switches are all copper-based gigabit Ethernet-ports and the 24 and 48 ports switches offer 2 or 4 'combo' ports where the last 2 (resp. 4) ports can use either the RJ45/UTP 1000BaseT copper-interface or a fiber SFP transceiver for uplinks to a distribution or core switch. All switches offer standard features like VLANs, link-aggregation, auto-negotiation for speed- and duplex setting. The MAC address-table can hold up to 8000 MAC addresses in its forwarding table and have a 2Mb packet-buffering capacity
[Technical specifications overview o]
PowerConnect 2800 Series LAN Smart Switches
visited: 20 August 2013.
PowerConnect 3500
The PowerConnect 3500 series switches are Ethernet access-switches which comes in 4 models: the PCT3524 and PCT3548 with 24 resp 48 10/100Mb ethernet ports and the PCT3524P / PCT3548P with 24 or 48 10/100Mb with
PoE
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widel ...
option to power VOIP phones, Wifi Access-points or IP camera's.
All models can be provided with a redundant power supply for either pure redundant power or to provide a full PoE power budget for the 48 ports PoE switch. The technical specifications of the 'non-PoE' and the 'PoE' models are the same in regards to switching capabilities and the main difference between the 24 and 48 port models is the total forwarding rate of the switch: 12,8Gbit/s for both 24 port models and 17,6 Gbit/s for the 48 port models. As with the PCT2800 models the MAC address table can hold up to 8000 MAC addresses.
Apart from all standard layer2 switching capabilities as VLAN's,
link aggregation
In computer networking, link aggregation is the combining ( aggregating) of multiple network connections in parallel by any of several methods, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, to provide redundan ...
(static and
LACP, dot1x access-security and dynamic VLAN assignment, the switches also offer some basic IP routing/layer 3 processing.
All PCT3500 switches offer two-gigabit ethernet (1000BaseT) ports for high-speed uplinks to distribution or core switches or for stacking of switches and two gigabits
SFP
SFP may refer to:
Organizations
* Salton Inc. (former stock symbol: SFP), now part of Russell Hobbs, Inc.
* Swedish People's Party of Finland, a Swedish minority and mainly liberal party in Finland
* Syrian Free Press, a Syrian social news networ ...
ports for a 1Gbit/s fiber transceiver for uplinks to distribution/core layer.
[Technical specification of th]
Dell PowerConnect 3500 100 Base-T Series Switches
visited: 20 August 2013
PowerConnect 5500
The PowerConnect 5500 series switches are gigabit ethernet access-switches, available in 4 models: either a 24 or 48 port gigabit ethernet switch or a 24/48 port gigabit ethernet switch with power-over-ethernet option. Regardless of the model, the switches offer two
HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...
ports for stacking and two
SFP+
Small Form-factor Pluggable connected to a pair of fiber-optic cables
Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable network interface module format used for both telecommunication and data communications applications. An SF ...
10Gbit transceiver ports for 10Gb uplinks.
The technical specifications of the 4 models are all the same, except for the number of ports and the PoE feature and the total switching capacity of 128 Gbit/s (24 port) or 176 Gbit/s (48 port)
[Technical specifications of th]
Powerconnect 5500 series
visited 20 August 2013 with a MAC address table size of 16.000 entries, up to 4000 VLAN's, support for link-aggregation, VLAN tagging, dot1x security, and dynamic VLAN assignment, etc.
Although the switches are mainly layer2 ethernet switches they do offer some IP features like static routing (up to 64 static routes), IP or MAC-based access-lists, DHCP snooping, quality of service options and IGMP (multicast) features. Up to 8 switches out of the 5500 series can be stacked, using the built-in HDMI stack-ports, to form one logical switch. The switch also offers special features for a voice-VLAN as well as extensive options for dot1x security and dynamic VLAN assignment via
RADIUS
In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...
or
TACACS+
Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System (TACACS, ) refers to a family of related protocols handling remote authentication and related services for network access control through a centralized server. The original TACACS protocol, which dat ...
server. For better energy efficiency the switch also offers
Energy Efficient Ethernet
In computer networking, Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) is a set of enhancements to twisted-pair, twinaxial, backplane, and optical fiber Ethernet physical-layer variants that reduce power consumption during periods of low data activity. The ...
or EEE (IEEE 802.3az) allowing the switch to negotiate a lower link-speed on access-interfaces when the connected client doesn't require the full bandwidth, and when the connected client requires more bandwidth than the active link speed it will (re)negotiate a higher speed. The PCT5500 series support Spanning-tree, Rapid Spanning-tree, and Multiple spanning-tree. The default setting is rapid-spanning tree.
Other features offered by the PCT5500 series is port-mirroring, jumbo-frame support, dynamic ARP inspection, IGMP snooping, private VLAN configuration, LLDP/LLDP-MED, management-access-lists, etc.
The two PoE enabled switches can offer up to 15.4 watts of power to each of the 24 or 48 copper gigabit interfaces. To provide (full) power to more than 24 ports, an extra 'redundant power supply' must be installed on the PCT5548P. In case of the failure of one of the power supplies, PoE priorities can be set to continue to give PoE power to the most important devices and switch off less important devices.
Managed Multi-layer gigabit ethernet switches
Dell Networking offers two main-models for layer3 gigabit ethernet rack switches: the PowerConnect 6200 series and the PowerConnect 7000 series. In regards to available models for the number of ports, PoE support, and copper/fiber the PCT6200 and PCT7000 models are very similar. The basic features of both models are also very alike, but the PCT7000 series offer a range of additional features that are not available in the PCT6200. Some important differences between the PCT6200 and PCT7000 are that the PCT7000 offers a dedicated 'out-of-band' management interface. Although both switches are stackable, only PCT6200 models or PCT7000 models can be combined in a single stack. The only exception is that it is possible to combine the PCT7000 series with the blade-switch PCM6348 in a single stack. It is not possible to combine a PCT6200 rack switch with a PCM6220 blade-switch.
Common features
The PCT6200 series is the first real 'multilayer switch' and the PCT7000 is a more advanced and powerful multi-layer switch. But for both models the following characteristics apply: besides the basic IP features offered by the PCT5500 the PCT6200 series (and above) are real multi-layer switches offering dynamic routing features like RIP and OSPF. The PCT6200/PCT7000 series offer either 24 or 48 port switches with a PoE enabled variant on both the 24 and 48 port.
[Technical specificatio]
PowerConnect 6200 series
2012. Downloaded: 20 August 2013[Technical specification]
PowerConnect 7000 series
31 December 2012. Visited: 21 August 2013 And there are also switches offering 24 SFP interfaces for an all-fiber network and/or to let the "-F series" switch be used as a distribution or core level with uplinks to remote access-switches via a fiber-optic link.
Each of the models offers 24+4 or 48+4 ports on the front-side of the switch where the last (highest) 4 ports are so-called 'combo ports': for the 'copper' based switches (1000BaseT or PoE models) there is an option to connect up to four fiber links using an SFP transceiver instead of the corresponding RJ45 copper interfaces. And on the PCTxx24F up to four RJ45 UTP ports (without PoE) can be used.
On the back-side of each model, there are two extension-module bays that can be used for stacking or for 10Gbit uplinks offering two SFP+ transceiver ports. When stacking the PowerConnect series switches, the stacking module must be installed in bay1.
Differences
Some of the most obvious differences between the PCT6200 models and the PCT7000 models are:
:The PCT7000 also offers a dual 10GbaseT copper 10Gbit uplink module where the 6200 series only offers an SFP+ uplink module
:The PCT6200 stacking module can also be configured to run as a 10Gbit Ethernet module with CX4 interfaces
:On the PCT7000 series, a stack can be combined with the PCM6348 blade switch in a
Dell M1000e
The Dell blade server products are built around their M1000e enclosure that can hold their server blades, an embedded EqualLogic iSCSI storage area network and I/O modules including Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand switches.
Enclosure
The ...
chassis
:The PCT7000 series offer an 'out of band' management interface which keeps management traffic out of the main switching/routing part of the switches.
:The PCT7048R and PCT7048RA is a switch with redundant power-supply (without need for external RPS module) and the RA offers reverse-air flow (back to ports direction, compared to ports to 'power supply side' in normal airflow). The PCT6200 series has only standard airflow; for a redundant power supply, a separate (1
RU) RPS module is required.
:The PCT7000 series offers a wider range of supported SFP+ optics, including some long-range multi-mode 10Gb optics
PowerConnect 8100
The latest addition on the PowerConnect portfolio is the Powerconnect 8132(f) and 8164(f) offering up to 32 or 64 10GbaseT or SFP+ ports. The 8164(f) also offers built-in two QSFP+ 40Gb ports. All the PCT8100 models have one expansion slot allowing to insert a dual QSFP+ port for two 40Gb interfaces or -with a break-out cable- 2 x 4 x SFP+ 10Gbit/s ports
[Technical specification]
PowerConnect 8100
visited: 21 August 2013
Once the PCT8100 us updated to firmware level 6.0 or later, it is renamed to N4000 model.
The PowerConnect 8100 series switches announced in 2012 offered 24 or 48 ports on 10Gb and 0 or 2 built-in ports for 40 Gb QSFP ports. All models also have one extension-module slot with either two QSFP 40Gb ports, 4 SFP+ 10Gb ports or 4 10GbaseT ports. It is a small (1U) switch with a high port-density and can be used as distribution or (collapsed)core switch for campus networks and for use in the datacenter it offers features such as loss-less ethernet for iSCSI and FCoE,
data center bridging
Data center bridging (DCB) is a set of enhancements to the Ethernet local area network communication protocol for use in data center environments, in particular for use with clustering and storage area networks.
Motivation
Ethernet is the primary ...
(DCB) and
iSCSI
Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...
Auto-configure
[Del]
PowerConnect 8100 spec sheet
July 2012. Downloaded: 29 August 2012
The PCT8100 series is a "multi-layer" switch which can be used as either a "pure" layer-2 ethernet-switch or as a "layer-3" switch with extensive IP routing functions. Most routing is done in hardware and can be done at (near) wire-speed. Management can be done via the "out-of-band" ethernet interface or "in-band" by connecting to one of the vlan-ip addresses. Management is possible via HTTP(s), telnet, SSH or even serial console cable.
Up to 6 units in the 8100 series can be stacked to form one logical switch and any type of interface (10Gb or 40Gb, fiber-optical, or UTP copper) can be used for stacking. Similar to the rack-switches PCT7000 and PCT8024 series the switch offers an ''out-of-band'' fast-ethernet port for management as well as a serial console connection, required for initial configuration.
The switch is built around the
Broadcom Trident+ ASIC: the same ASIC as can be found in
Cisco Nexus 5000 switches or
Force10
Dell Force10 (formerly nCore Networks, Force10 Networks), was a United States company that developed and marketed 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches for computer networking to corporate, educational, and governmental customers. It had ...
models. The PowerConnect 8100 is initially released with
firmware
In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
5.0 of the switch-firmware which offers the
same features as the PowerConnect 7000 and 8024 rack-switches and the different M-series Ethernet switches.
The underlying operating system of the PCT8100 is based on
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
2.6 where all other 'Broadcom powered' PowerConnects run on
VxWorks
VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, determin ...
.
`
Dell Networking H series
The Dell Networking H-series is really an OEM version of Intels'
Omni-Path
Omni-Path Architecture (OPA) was a high-performance communication architecture owned by Intel. It aims for low communication latency, low power consumption and a high throughput. Intel planned to develop technology based on this architecture for e ...
platform, which itself is an alternative for
InfiniBand
InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used ...
. When managing an OmniPath network many commands are very similar to Infiniband switches.
Dell Networking N series
The N-series switches come in 3 groups:
N1500: Gigabit layer2 switches
The N1500 offers a low budget step in the model compared to the N2000. The N1500 doesn't have dedicated (back-side) stacking-ports, but 10G ethernet uplink ports can be converted to stacking ports, and multiple N1500s can be stacked together.
N2000: Gigabit layer2 switches
The N2000 is an Ethernet switch with limited IP capabilities. There are two 'sizes': 24 x 1GbaseT or 48 x 1GBaseT ports and each of them available as POE+ or standard switch. All models in the N20xx series can be stacked with other models in the same series. Although they do use the same stacking-cables as the N3000 series it is NOT possible to stack N2000 with N3000 switches. All models come with 2 x 10Gbase SFP+ uplink ports and two 'tweeting' stacking ports at the back. Management can be done by assigning an IP address to switch or one of the VLAN-interfaces. The N2000 is marketed as the follow-up for the legacy PowerConnect 5500 models as well as the Force10 S25 and S50 models.
N3000: Gigabit multi-layer switches
The N3000 is hardware-wise pretty similar to the N2000 series but the OS offers advanced IP capabilities (including routing protocols like RIP, OSPF, PBR, etc.). Besides the 4 model choices as in N2000 (24 or 48 ports, with or without POE+) there is also the N3024F which offers 24 x SFP 1G ports.
Unlike the N2000 series, the N3000 has 'combo-ports': All 'copper' based switches offer 2 SFP 1Gb fiber ports (to be used instead of the two highest-numbered RJ45 1GBaseT port) and the N3024F offers two 1 GbaseT RJ45 combo ports (interface 23 and 24). All N3000 series switches also offer two SFP+ 10Gb uplink ports. Optionally, a module can be added for another two SFP+ ports or two 10GBaseT RJ45 ports. Stacking can be done via the built-in 'twenty gig' ports and for management, an out-of-band 1G Ethernet management port can be used. The N3000 series is the follow-up for the legacy PowerConnect 6200 and 7000 series as well as the Force10 S50/S55 switches.
N4000: 10Gbit multi-layer switches
The N4000 series is the new name for the former PowerConnect 8100 series switch and any PCT8100 that is upgraded to a firmware above 6.0.0.0 will be renamed to an N40xx series switch. There are four main models: N4032F and N4064F with standard 24 or 48 x 10G SFP+ ports, 0 or 2 built-in QSFP+ ports and one module bay; and N4032 and N4064 with 24 or 48 x 10GbaseT RJ45 ports, 0 or 2 built-in QSFP+ ports, and one module bay. Each QSFP+ port can be split in a 4 x SFP+ port using a break-out cable. The module bay can accommodate either a two-port QSFP+, a 4 x 10GBaseT or a 4 x SFP+ module.
Stacking can be done via 10G or 40G ports, and the different N40xx series switches can 'mix and match' in a single stack. Management can be done 'in-band' or via the dedicated out-of-band 1Gb Ethernet interface. See also above section on the
PowerConnect 8100 series for model-details.
Datacenter switches
The former Force10 switches are now known as Dell Networking switches, but the model naming will be very similar to the old model naming in Force10:
Dell Networking S series
The current portfolio of Force10 switches can be split into two main ranges: existing S25, S50, S55, and S60 one gigabit rack-switches which are layer2 or multilayer access-switches and the S4810, S4820T and the new S5000 series.
The existing Force10 S-series datacenter bridges will be extended with the S5000 series modular switch. The S5000 will be a modular switch that can support 48 x 10Gb Ethernet ports + 4 x 40Gb QSFP ethernet or stacking ports.
[Dell Networkin]
S-series datacenter switches
visited 26 May 2013
The main difference between the S4810 or S4820T series switches is that the S5000 is modular: it can start with fewer ports, and the second big change is that it will be able to have native 8Gb
fibre channel
Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...
ports modules, allowing to connect directly to a native fiber-channel switch (e.g.
Brocade
Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and sometimes with gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli", comes from Italian ''broccato'' meaning "embos ...
FC fabric). Like other switches in the DN S-series, the S5000 will support stacking and also
Virtual Link Trunking
Virtual Link Trunking (VLT) is a name that has been used for at least two proprietary network protocols. A link aggregation protocol developed by Force10 and an early VLAN tagging capability from 3Com.
Force10
Virtual Link Trunking or VLT is a Pr ...
: allowing the creation of an LACP port-channel from another switch or even server that terminates on two different (logical or physical) switches.
The S5000 is targeted for data center networking as either a 10G access-switch or a datacenter distribution switches. It can also be used as (routing) core switch in smaller data centers. It fully supports
Data Center Bridging
Data center bridging (DCB) is a set of enhancements to the Ethernet local area network communication protocol for use in data center environments, in particular for use with clustering and storage area networks.
Motivation
Ethernet is the primary ...
(DCB) and can also be used as
FCoE
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...
or Fibre Channel switch by using a FC interface module. It provides full FC logic allowing one to directly connect FC based SAN's to the switch to fully support
FCoE
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...
or
Converged Networking in combination with the other 10G switches in the Dell Networking range.
The latest S6000 is marketed as either a core or spine switch in a medium-sized datacenter or a leaf switch for (very) large datacenters. The S6000 offers 32 x 40Gb QSFP interfaces which can be 'split' into 4 x 10Gb by using either splitter direct-attached-cable (QSFP->4xSFP+) or optical splitter cables with a maximum of 96 10G SFP+ ports and 8 remaining 40Gb ports. The S6000 is based on the
Broadcom Trident2 ASIC
Dell Networking Z-series
Dell Networking Z-series has two models of high-capacity switches in a 2U (Z9000) or 3U (Z9500) form-factor. The original Z9000 offers 32 line-rate 40Gb QSFP ports while the new Z9500 offers 132 x 40Gb QSFP+ ports. It is possible to buy the Z9500 with only a number of the interfaces actually enabled and via additional licenses to be bought at a later moment in time datacenter owners can spread the investment with the growth of the traffic-demand.
Both switches are designed to be the 'spine' in a spine-leaf distributed core network-design and with the
VLT technology fully redundant topologies can be built where two switches (partially) share the data pane but have independent management (unlike stacking where there is only a single management pane).
Dell_website:_[overview_Z-series_switches
_visited:_11_January_2015
__Dell_Networking_chassis-based_switches_
Besides_the_range_of_campus_(N-series)_and_datacenter_top-of-rack_form-factor_switches_(S-_and_Z-series)_Dell_also_offers_two_ranges_of_chassis-based_product_lines:_the_C-series_and_the_E-series.
The_C-series_are_rebranded_to_the_Dell_model-number_naming:_one_letter_followed_by_4_digits_(instead_of_the_legacy_Force10_C150_and_C300_chassis)_while_the_E-series_has_not_seen_any_name-change.
see_main-article_on_Force10#Chassis_switches.html" ;"title="verview Z-series switches">Dell website: Force10_chassis_based_switches
_Sources_and_references
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Dell_hardware.html" ;"title="verview Z-series switches
visited: 11 January 2015
Dell Networking chassis-based switches
Besides the range of campus (N-series) and datacenter top-of-rack form-factor switches (S- and Z-series) Dell also offers two ranges of chassis-based product lines: the C-series and the E-series.
The C-series are rebranded to the Dell model-number naming: one letter followed by 4 digits (instead of the legacy Force10 C150 and C300 chassis) while the E-series has not seen any name-change.
see main-article on Force10#Chassis switches">Force10 chassis based switches
Sources and references
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Dell hardware">Networking