The out-of-band (OOB) management network is an isolated network for remote management of hardware. This includes VxRail nodes, servers, switches, storage arrays, and rack power distribution units (PDUs) using their dedicated management ports.
For OOB management network connections, one S3048-ON switch is installed in each rack, as shown in the figure below.
The OOB management network enables connections to the PowerSwitch SFS web UI. It also enables switch console access using SSH, and VxRail node console access using the iDRAC. This network is also used to carry heartbeat messages between switches configured as VLT peers, and for OpenManage Network Integration (OMNI) to communicate with the SFS master switch.
Four 10 GbE SFP+ ports are available on each S3048-ON for use as uplinks to the OOB management network core.
1 GbE BASE-T ports on each S3048-ON are connected downstream to hardware management ports on each device in the rack. This includes the VxRail node iDRAC ports and switch management ports. Management ports on other devices, such as PowerEdge server iDRAC ports, storage array management ports, and rack PDU management ports, are also connected to this network.
OOB management switch configuration is not detailed in this guide. The S3048-ON can function as an OOB management switch with its OS10 factory default configuration. By default, all ports are in switchport mode, in VLAN 1, administratively up, and rapid per-VLAN spanning tree plus (RPVST+) is enabled.