The out-of-band (OOB) management network is an isolated network for remote management of hardware. This hardware includes VxRail nodes, servers, switches, storage arrays, and rack power distribution units (PDUs) using their dedicated management ports.
For OOB management network connections, one N3248TE-ON switch is installed in each rack, as shown in the figure below.
The OOB management network is required for connections to the PowerSwitch SFS web UI. It also enables switch console access using SSH, ESXi Server, and VxRail Node console access using the iDRAC. This network is also used to carry heartbeat messages between switches that are configured as VLT peers. Also, it is used for OpenManage Network Integration (OMNI) to communicate with the SFS leader switch.
In this deployment example, the OOB management network is also used for the vCenter to communicate with the ESXi hosts. As an option, the vCenter may communicate with the ESXi hosts on one of the in-band networks.
Four 10 GbE SFP+ ports are available on each N3248TE-ON for use as uplinks to the OOB management network core.
The 1 GbE BASE-T ports on each N3248TE-ON are connected downstream to hardware management ports on each device in the rack. These devices include 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 N3248TE-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.