Setup Guide

21 Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide

Recommended maximum number of VLANs in SmartFabric mode

OS10EE release

Parameter

Value

10.4.0.R3S

10.4.0.R4S

Used for low priority data traffic

128

Used for standard/default priority data traffic

128

Used for high priority data traffic

3.5 Configuring port speed and breakout

If you need to change the default port speed and/or breakout configuration of an uplink port, you must do that

prior to creating the uplink.

For example, the QSFP28 interfaces that belong to port groups 13, 14, 15, and 16 on MX9116n FSE are

typically used for uplink connections. By default, the ports are set to 1x100GbE. The QSFP28 interface

supports the following Ethernet breakout configurations:

• 1x 100GbE – One 100GbE interface

• 1x 40GbE – One 40GbE interface

• 2x 50GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into two 50GbE interfaces

• 4x 25GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into four 25GbE interfaces

• 4x 10GbE – Breakout a QSFP28 port into four 10GbE interfaces

The MX9116n also supports Fibre Channel (FC) capabilities via Universal Ports on port-groups 15 and 16.

For more information on configuring FC storage on the MX9116n, see

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX Series Fibre

Channel Storage Network Deployment with Ethernet IOMs guide.

For more information on interface breakouts, see OS10EE User Guide.

3.6 Storage Uplinks

In addition to standard Ethernet uplinks, SmartFabric supports storage uplinks as well:

• FCoE: This uplink type passes FCoE traffic to an upstream switch with the capability to convert FCoE

traffic to native FC traffic, such as the Dell EMC PowerSwitch S4148U-ON. This uplink type is

supported on all PowerEdge MX Ethernet switches

• FC Gateway: This uplink type enables NPG FC Gateway functionality on the MX9116n unified ports,

converting FCoE traffic to native FC traffic and passing that traffic to an external FC switch.

Supported on the MX9116n only

• FC Direct Attach: This uplink type enables F_Port functionality on the MX9116n unified ports,

converting FCoE traffic to native FC traffic and passing that traffic to a directly attached FC storage

array. Supported on the MX9116n only

For more information on the Storage capabilities of SmartFabric, see

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX Series Fibre

Channel Storage Network Deployment with Ethernet IOMs guide.