Concept Guide

Setting up SFS
This chapter explains the workflow to setup SFS including initializing SFS and enabling it on leaf and spine switches.
Prerequisites
Ensure that the following are met before enabling SFS on the switches:
● Configure the Out-of-band (OOB) management configuration on the leaf switches. OOB management network enables
connections to the SFS GUI. Dell EMC PowerSwitch S3048-ON can function as an OOB management switch with the
OS10 factory default configuration. For more information about OOB management topology and connection details, see the
respective Solution Deployment Guides
● Verify the SmartFabric OS10 version on the switches and update them with recommended version listed in the Support
Matrix.
SFS configuration notes
This section lists important behaviors, considerations, and recommendations you must know before deploying SFS:
Recommendations
See Internal components and networks for more information about the SFS components and networks that are created by SFS.
Recommendations and notes regarding the SFS components are:
● Dell Technologies recommends that you do not change or disable the STP settings on switches in SmartFabric mode. Any
change to the STP settings results in reboot of all the switches in the fabric and disabling STP settings cause loops.
● Dell Technologies recommends using uplinks from a leaf pair as a best practice. Uplinks from leaf switches to external
switches can be L2 or L3. All uplinks from spine switches to external switches must be L3.
● Except for Isilon/PowerScale deployment, breakout feature is not supported on the leaf switches for the ICL (VLTi) or ISL
(leaf and spine) connections. Use the default speed cables of the leaf switch when creating the ISL or ICL connections in a
L3 fabric.
○ ISL example—If the default speed on the leaf switch port is 100G and spine switch port is 400G, use 100G cable for ISL
connection. Since autobreakout feature is enabled on the spine switch, the port speed of the spine switch is set to 100G
automatically.
○ ICL example—If the default speed of the leaf switches is 100G, use 100G cable for the ICL connection.
●
Ensure that the leaf switches in the existing fabric are set as the Preferred Master before expanding the fabric to prevent
the configuration loss. Preferred Master flag is automatically set when you create an uplink for the leaf switches using SFS
GUI. Once a master is elected, it initiates all applications to automatically build the network fabric, and master virtual IP
address is advertised for applications to automatically discover the fabric through inband networks.
● If you want to breakout the ports to configure uplinks or jump hosts, ensure that the breakout ports are configured on the
switch before creating and configuring these entities. You can configure breakout ports using SFS GUI.
Default settings
● SFS creates VLANs from 4000 to 4094 for internal use. Do not use these VLANs for general use.
● SFS creates 172.16.0.0/16 and 172.30.0.0/16 networks for the leaf and spine network configuration.
● By default, autobreakout feature is enabled on the leaf switches in SmartFabric mode. Autobreakout works only on DAC and
AOC cables.
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Setting up SFS 11