Force10 MXL switch port mapping

Question

I'm having trouble understanding how blade server internal NIC mapping on the Dell m1000e enclosure when using the Force10 MXL blade switch?

So as I understand when two MXL Switches is inserted into the back on the enclosure, 32 tengig internal ports are visible.

So if I run #show ip int bri

There will be ten0/1, ten0/2 .... till ten0/32 And on switch2 ten0/1, ten0/2 .... till ten0/32

(Assuming switches are not stacked)

So let's say I have three blade servers the mapping would be like this Ten0/1 on the first switch and the ten0/1 on the second switch will be for blade server 1.

And so on for any server inserted to the enclosure.

Is this is this correct how I explained it? Can anyone correct me if I'm wrong?!

Thanks

Answer 1

You are correct (if the blade has dual port network cards)

• Blade1_NIC0 -> A1_Te0/1
• Blade1_NIC1 -> A2_Te0/1
• Blade2_NIC0 -> A1_Te0/2
• Blade2_NIC1 -> A2_Te0/2 ....
• Blade16_NIC0 -> A1_Te0/16
• Blade16_NIC1 -> A2_Te0/16

All this NICs are related to LOM. If you add mezzanine cards to the server in the B and C slots, it just will repeat the pattern in the B and C switch.

And for the extra mile...why are 17-32 ports? Well, in some scenarios you can use quad port cards in the blade. So you will have two extra ports mapped to the Te0/17 in the first server and so on until the blade16 mapped to the Te0/32 port.