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Private switches are used by ECS for node management. For Gen1/2 appliances, the private switches also allow for out-of-band (OOB) management communication between customer networks and Remote Management Module (RMM) ports in individual ECS nodes. Gen1/2 appliances have a 52-port 1 GbE Arista switch, or a Cisco switch for organizations with strict Cisco only requirements. Gen3 appliances contain two 25 GbE 48-port Dell private switches identical in model to the public switches.
Note: Gen3 does not allow for OOB management communication from customer networks.
The management ports in each node connect to one or more private switches. They use private addresses such as 192.168.219.x. Each Gen1/2 node also has a connection between its RMM port and the private switch. This node also can have access to the customer network to provide OOB management of the nodes. Gen3 nodes also have a connection between their integrated Dell Remote Controller (iDRAC) and one of the private switches. However, there is no customer-facing OOB management for Gen3 ECS nodes.
Note: Dell switches are required for the private network. Private switches cannot be customer-provided.
Best practices: