Owner's Manual

Bare Metal Provisioning 1.5 | 15

Bare Metal Provisioning 1.5

In Open Automation, Bare Metal Provisioning version 1.5 is supported on S55 and

S60 switches and is included as part of the FTOS image.

For information on how Bare Metal Provisioning version 2.0 is supported on S4810

and Z9000 switches, see Chapter 4, Bare Metal Provisioning 2.0.

Bare Metal Provisioning (BMP) minimizes the effort required to manage increasing

numbers of network devices in a data center by:

• Automatically configuring switches, including stacked switches

• Ensuring standard configurations across installed devices

• Automating configuration updates

Pre-defined configurations are stored in a configuration management database and

automatically loaded onto supported Dell Force10 switches through DHCP,

providing the following benefits:

• Lower network complexity—Network administrators can ensure that data center

switches are configured in a consistent manner.

• Reduced installation time—Less time is required to install and configure

switches by searching the network for a valid configuration file and an approved

version of the FTOS operating system.

• Policy-based configuration management—Network administrators can define a

network configuration based on policy and use BMP to ensure that every network

switch is configured accordingly.

BMP automates the following configuration steps on a supported Dell Force10

switch:

• Obtain an IP address, configuration, and boot image information from a DHCP

server.

You can also access a switch through an Ethernet management port with or without

DHCP-based, dynamic IP address configuration of the device.

• Boot up in Layer 2 mode with interfaces already in

no shutdown mode and

some basic protocols enabled to protect the system and the network.