Troubleshooting

Migrating Exchange 2010 To Dell Advanced Infrastructure Manager Environment
Page 6
Using AIM, CLI commands are applied to the database immediately upon submitting the configuration
changes. The Controller maintains a database of the resources identified in the Dell AIM environment.
When users connect to the Controller by using the Console or the CLI, the Controller projects to the
Console or CLI a copy of the most current database to monitor and change. When you make changes to
the database using the Console or CLI (adding a resource, changing a network, starting a persona, and
so on), the changes are committed to the database using the ‗save‘ command. The commands used to
interact with the controller are listed in later sections.
Networking with AIM
Analogous to physical networks, AIM networks are logical constructs with IPv4 network address and
network masks. These logical constructs behave the same way in a Dell AIM managed environment as
do conventional networks, except that they‘re built out of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) over
physical Network Interface Cards (NICs), switches, and cables. AIM networks are easy to create and
manage compared to physical networks as they do not require any re-wiring of your network
infrastructure. Many networks can be added to the AIM environment even if there is only a single
physical NIC available. The number of AIM networks is limited by the number of VLANs supported by
physical switches.
AIM organizes physical network resources into channels, and a channel ID is assigned to each managed
switch. An AIM managed switch has default channel 1 for all its ports, which should be changed based
on your network configuration. For example, you can have your AIM bootable NIC‘s on channel 1, MAPI
network on channel 3, and Replication Network on channel 4.
The Controller uses the System Control Network (SCN), which is an AIM-defined logical network used to
discover new servers and their capabilities, to communicate status and configuration changes between
itself and personas, to connect servers with the network storage devices that contain the images that
personas boot from, and to manage many other aspects of how personas are configured, including how
they are connected to networks. AIM personas connect to AIM networks through Network Connections.
Personas have hidden network connections to the SCN. A persona can be configured to have its
networking in trunk, access or auto mode by configuring the ‗Mode‘ parameter of the persona.
When the network mode is set to trunk, each physical network interface on the persona is configured
so it can access multiple VLANs. This means that the Dell AIM software agent will create tagged
network interfaces on top of the physical interfaces in the operating system, and then configure all the
networking settings required by the persona‘s network connections using those interfaces. Additional
network interfaces are observed at the operating system level. The persona in trunk mode performs
efficiently provided the operating system has the Dell AIM agent software installed. AIM agent software
communicates with the controller and helps configure networks dynamically on the operating system.
AIM agent software also helps the controller to monitor the health of the server on which the persona is
booted. Every switch port to which the persona is connected will be configured in trunk mode with the
user VLANs added to the list of allowed VLANs as required by the persona‘s network connections. AIM
persona networks in trunk mode
1
can combine traffic from multiple VLANs and hence provide ways to
configure failover channels for network interfaces.
In access mode, the network interfaces on the operating system are managed by AIM. However, the
access mode of the persona configures each network interface on the on the operating system to
access a single VLAN. This means that no additional network interfaces are created at the operating
1
AIM personas in trunk mode do not support jumbo frames at present.