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A Dell EMC Ready Stack for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.2 deployment consists of a minimum of seven physical nodes, which are the host servers that form an integral part of a Kubernetes container ecosystem. The container ecosystem consists of many components and operations, each of which require network connectivity and the ability to communicate with one another and respond to incoming network requests.
Ready Stack for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.2 uses Dell EMC PowerSwitch networking infrastructure. You can replace the PowerSwitch network communications infrastructure with third-party network switches, but you will not be able to use the Dell EMC automated switch-provisioning process; instead, you must manage the provisioning process outside of the deployment processes that this design guide describes.
The new Dell EMC data center networking model is an open ecosystem in which organizations can choose network switches from a range of innovative, industry-standard network applications, network operating systems, and network hardware. Open networking solutions enable IT managers to build an application-agnostic infrastructure and to simplify data center management with standard automation tools and standards-based open platforms.
Dell EMC has rebranded the Open Networking Z series, S series, and N series switch portfolio to Dell EMC PowerSwitch.
Dell EMC PowerSwitch networking provides:
Dell EMC PowerSwitch solutions are cost-effective and easy to deploy, providing a clear path to software-defined networking (SDN). The following figure depicts Dell EMC’s open networking model:
Figure 3. Open networking design
Dell EMC Networking OS10 Enterprise Edition is a network operating system supporting multiple architectures and environments, as shown in the following figure:
Figure 4. OS10 software model
The OS10 solution allows multilayered disaggregation of network functions that are layered on an open-source Linux-based operating system. OS10 contributions to open source provide users with the freedom and flexibility to pick their own third-party networking, monitoring, management, and orchestration applications. OS10 Enterprise Edition bundles an industry-hardened networking stack featuring standard L2 and L3 protocols over established northbound interfaces such as CLI, SNMP, and REST. The Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) and Control Plane Services (CPS) abstraction layers provide disaggregation at the Network Processing Unit (NPU) and for the software applications that are written on top of the Linux kernel.
The IT industry has frequently highlighted the challenges of bootstrapping a new cluster infrastructure, especially the challenges that are inherent in initial cluster data plane network provisioning during the cluster deployment process.
Dell EMC PowerSwitch networking devices running OS10 provide a consistent switch network operating environment that makes it possible to automate initial switch provisioning, easing the way for the deployment of your OpenShift Container Platform software infrastructure. For more information, see the Dell EMC Ready Stack: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.2 Deployment Guide.