Note: Verify that the software requirements provided in Appendix C are met before performing the steps provided in this document.
Home > Networking Solutions > Modular/Blade Switches > MX-Series Modular Switches (PowerEdge MX) > Guides > Dell EMC PowerEdge MX SmartFabric Services and VMware NSX-T Data Center Integration Guide > Hardware overview
Note: Verify that the software requirements provided in Appendix C are met before performing the steps provided in this document.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX platform is a unified, high-performance data center infrastructure. It provides the agility, resiliency, and efficiency to optimize a wide variety of traditional and new, emerging data center workloads and applications. With its kinetic architecture and agile management, PowerEdge MX dynamically configures compute, storage, and fabric; increases team effectiveness; and accelerates operations. The responsive design delivers the innovation and longevity that customers need for their IT and digital business transformations.
As part of the PowerEdge MX platform, the Dell EMC SmartFabric OS10 network operating system includes SmartFabric Services (SFS), a network automation and orchestration solution that is fully integrated with the MX platform.
The Dell EMC Networking MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine (FSE) is a scalable, high-performance, low latency 25 GbE switch purpose-built for the PowerEdge MX platform. In addition to sixteen internal 25 GbE ports, the MX9116n FSE also provides:
The two standard QSFP28 ports can be used for Ethernet uplinks. The QSFP28 unified ports can support Ethernet or native Fibre Channel connectivity, supporting both NPIV Proxy Gateway (NPG), and direct attach FC capabilities.
The twelve QSFP28-DD ports provide capacity for additional uplinks, Virtual Link Trunking – interconnect (VLTi) links, and connections to rack servers at 10 GbE or 25 GbE using breakout cables. The QSFP28-DD ports also provide fabric expansion connections for up to nine additional MX7000 chassis using the MX7116n Fabric Expander Module. The MX7000 chassis supports up to four MX9116n FSEs in Fabric A and Fabric B.
The Dell EMC Networking MX5108n Ethernet switch is targeted at small PowerEdge MX7000 deployments of one or two chassis. While not a scalable switch, it still provides high-performance and low latency with a non-blocking switching architecture. In addition to eight internal 25 GbE ports, the MX5108n provides one 40 GbE QSFP+ port, two 100 GbE QSFP28 ports, and four 10 GbE RJ45 BASE-T ports.
These ports provide a combination of network uplink, VLT interconnect (VLTi), or FCoE connectivity.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX7000 supports up to four MX5108n Ethernet switches in Fabric A or Fabric B, or both.
The Dell EMC PowerSwitch S5232F-ON is a 1U, multilayer switch with 32x 100 GbE QSFP28 ports and 2x 10 GbE SFP+ ports. This guide uses two S5232F-ON switches as leaf switches.
The Dell EMC PowerSwitch S3048-ON is a 1U switch with forty-eight 1 GbE BASE-T ports and four 10 GbE SFP+ ports. This guide uses one S3048-ON switch in each rack for out-of-band (OOB) management traffic.
The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX740c is a two-socket, full-height, single-width compute sled that offers impressive performance and scalability. It is ideal for dense virtualization environments, and can serve as a foundation for collaborative workloads. The MX7000 chassis supports up to eight MX740c sleds.
Key features of the PowerEdge MX740c include:
The PowerEdge R640 is the ideal dual-socket, 1U platform for dense scale-out data center computing. The scalable business architecture of the R640 is designed to maximize application performance and provide the flexibility to optimize configurations based on the application and use case. The PowerEdge R640 features second generation Intel Xeon scalable processors and maximizes storage performance with up to 10 NVMe drives, which tailor performance based on your unique workload requirements.
The PowerEdge R640 supports a wide variety of storage options such as: