Hi,

What revision is the midplane? The 1.0 midplane does not support 10Gb in Fabric A. 

The 6220 is still a 1gig switch as far as the internal ports are concerned.  So you may have installed an 10Gb uplink module, but the blades are still limited to 1gig I believe.

Hi Thanks for the information guys. This is helpful...

This might explain why my Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 just refuses to work, it says it requires a 10gb fabric.

So from what you are saying my m6220 is incapable of giving 10gb speeds to my blades or my sans......

Does anyone know of a replacement which will do this?

We replaced our M6220's with the M8024-k.  Another option would be the Force10 MXL which is more high end.  You'll want to make sure the midplane can handle 10Gb in Fabric A (as mentioned above), if thats where you are wanting to put them.  Generally Fabric A is used for LAN connectivity, and B/C are used for SAN, etc.  But thats not a hard rule.

Oh and I forgot, you'll also need 10Gb nics on the blades for whatever fabric you are using.  Lots of times Fabric A maps to LOM (lan on motherboard) for the blades which may only be 1Gb nics.  As an example our M620 blades have 1Gb LOM on Fabric A, and 10Gb dual port mezz card (intel x520) for fabric B and C.

I don't know off hand what Fabric the PS4110 maps to.

Hi Chris,

the Dell Equallogic PS M4110 will need a pair (pair for redundancy) of MXL or M8024-K  10GbE Switch modules in either Fabric A or B.

MXL is the more modern Switch module providing 32 x 10GbE internally and up to 24 x 10GbE ports externally (a Maximum of six QSFP+ 40GbE ports can be broken out to 4 x 10GbE each)

M8024-k is a cheaper and older switch module which provides 16 internal 10GbE ports and a maximum of 8 x 10GbE externally (4 x 10GbE SFP+ ports fixed and a port modul Slot for modules with 4 x SFP+ or 4 x 10GBaseT ports) but no 40GbE ports.

Variant 1

So if you plan to protect the Investment for the existing Equipment I'd suggest to keep on using the 1GbE Switch modules PowerConnect M6220 in Fabric A and to use

a new pair of MXL or M8024-k Switch modules in Fabric B.

This also would solve the issue if your M1000e Chassis midplane is to old for 10GbE in Fabric A as Fabric B and C are able to operate 10GbE Switches with the older midplane.

Also you would have to buy one 10GbE dual port Mezzanine Network card for each Server blade you plan to connect to these  Fabric B Switches and the storage blade (PS M4110).

An available and supported NIC is the "Broadcom 57810-k Dualport 10GbE CNA Mezzanine Card".

(Broadcom sold its 10GbE NIC Segment to QLOGIC, therefore it could be also named as "QLOGIC57810-k Dualport 10GbE CNA Mezzanine Card"

Don't Forget to plan the usage of the 10GbE Switch external Network ports:

1. the storage you bought (Dell PSM4110) needs cross linked iSCSI SAN switches

2. maybe you Need also external 10GbE (iSCSI-) connections to external Servers like Backup-Server

Variant 2

Also your Poweredge M620 Servers are able to get their Fabric A Network daughter Card  swapped with another type of Card, the "Qlogic 57840S quad port 10GbE KR Blade Network Daughter Card". This quadport 10GbE NIC is only available for usage in the Fabric A PCIe Slot of your M620 blades.

It would provide 4 x 10GbE ports, but to connect these 4 ports to your environment you would have to install a pair MXL switches into Fabric A. (and requieres the modern midplane)

Only this Switch module provides 2 x 10GbE internally for each of the sixteen M1000e's half height Server slots (in sum 32 ports)

The Advantage of this variant would be to use just one Fabric (A) of the Dell M1000e chassis

while providing 2 x 10GbE per Server blade for iSCSI storage Connection (to your PSM4110)

and two more available 10GbE ports per Server for your LAN need.

Also this variant needs the external 10GbE Switch module ports, again:

1. the storage you bought (Dell PSM4110) needs cross linked iSCSI SAN Switches

(use the two fixed QSFP+ 40GbE Ports with short 0,5m passive 40GbE QSFP+ DA copper cables)

2. maybe you Need also external 10GbE (iSCSI-) connections to external Servers like Backup-Server

3. if a pair of MXLs are your only Switches inside the chassis you have to plan uplinks to the existing LAN as well using optional MXL Switch port cards (providing 4 x 10GbE SFP+ ports or 4 x 10GBaseT RJ45 ports or 2 x 40GbE QSFP+ ports - two port card Slots are available for each MXL switch)

Regards Kay (work as an consultant for Dell)

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the responses... I just purchased 4 x MXL 10/40GbE..

I have installed them and put in them some PC8100-10GBT-R modules.

Do I have to do anything to activate the PC8100-10GBT-R modules as they dont seem to be live?

Many thanks  for all the help.

Chris

please check the following document: en.community.dell.com/.../20179394

page 12:
"The Dell Networking MXL supports the same expansion modules as the Dell Networking N40xx and 81xx series rack mounted switches. Whenever a module is moved from an N40xx/81xx to an MXL or vice versa, a reload of the switch is required for proper functioning of the module."

Means you have to reboot the switch module(s).
Please send the "Thank you" to my colleague Patrick who is networking specialist at Dell ;)

So basically the new switches are installed and lit up and have IP addresses but I cannot get to their web gui?

Also the 10gb modules have no lights on them and do not seem to be alive at all?

Any ideas please?

Hi Thanks for the reply

I have rebooted the switches and the entire blade chassis a number of times.

The switch is configured as much as I can from the CMC but I cannot get onto the switch GUI.......

The switch is lit up but the nodule with 4 x 10gbe ports is not.....

I will contact them but this must just be a config issue no?

I was thinking maybe I need to connect console cable and tell it, it has the module?

Here are some pics.....