ECS networking terms include:

• Front-end switches—Public or top-of-rack (ToR) switches that connect to the customer’s network, which includes the default public network and any defined separated networks such as management, replication, or data. The customary names for the two physical components in this switch complex are rabbit and hare. The node is configured to bond the two NICs into a single LACP bonding interface.

• Public network—The default network of the appliance that consists of two bonded interfaces with connections to the public (front-end) switch. By default, all types of public traffic use the public network, unless explicitly defined.
• Management network—An optional separated VLAN dedicated to hosting the ECS web portal, all common infrastructure services such as NTP, DNS, DHCP, and Dell Secure Remote Services.
• Replication network—An optional separated network dedicated to replicating objects between virtual data centers.

• Back-end switches—Private switches used for internal maintenance, including the ECS private network and the private.4 network (also known as Nile Area Network (NAN)). The customary names for these physical switches are hound and fox. All server nodes in an ECS intra-rack have two connections going to a back-end switch. Both connections are bonded into a single LACP bonding interface.

• Private network—A rack-only network used for service operations such as install, reinstall, and expansion.
• Private.4 network—A network that interconnects all co-located ECS racks through their private switches onto a single VLAN, which is VLAN 4 by default. Also referred to as the Nile Area Network (NAN).

Note: For ECS D- and U-series hardware models, the private switch is referred to as the turtle.

Networking for EX500 and EX5000

The EX500 and EX5000 appliances use the Dell S5248F for the front-end pair of switches and for the pair of back-end switches. Customers have the option of using their own front-end switches instead of the Dell switches. 

The following figure shows how ports in front-end network switches are intended to enable ECS node traffic and customer uplink ports. This is standard across all implementations. 

Figure 3.   Front-end network switch port of S5248F

The following figure shows how ports are intended to be used to enable ECS management traffic and diagnostic ports.

Figure 4.   Back-end network switch port of S5248F

Networking for EXF900

The EXF900 is the first release of a highly performant ECS object storage appliance offering. The ECS software uses an NVMe engine to configure local NVMe targets and establish NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) connections. High-performing and reliable connections to remote storage nodes are accomplished by having a dedicated highly available network using Ethernet-based RDMA as the transport fabric.

The EXF900 appliance uses the Dell S5248F for the front-end pair of switches and for the pair of back-end switches and S5232F for the aggregation back-end switch. Customers have the option of using their own front-end switches instead of the Dell switches.

The following figure show ports in a front-end network switch are used to enable ECS node traffic and customer uplink ports.

Figure 5.   Front-end network switch port of S5248F

The next figure shows how ports are intended to be used in a back-end network switch. These port allocations are standard across all implementations.

Figure 6.   Back-end network switch port of S5248F

Dell provides two 100 GbE S5232F back-end aggregation switches (AGG1 and AGG2) with four 100 GbE VLT cables. These switches are referred to as the falcon and eagle switches, as shown in Figure 7. The number of uplinks between each rack and the aggregation switches ensures all the EXF900 nodes have line rate performance to any node in any rack. This setup allows for low latency and high throughput across the entire cluster.

Figure 7.   Aggregation switch port of S5232F

Consult the following information for switch, switch port, and overall network planning guidance:

• ECS Designer Spreadsheet Overview—A critical and informative video about the design and provisioning process, especially about switches and their related configuration, which guides users through important questions. Contact your account team if you do not receive the installation scripts.
• ECS EX Series Hardware Guide—A guide that provides information about supported hardware configurations, upgrade paths, and rack cabling requirements.
• ECS Networking and Best Practices—A white paper that describes details about ECS networking, network hardware, network configurations, and network separation.