Dell Chassis Management Controller Version 3.0 for Dell EMC PowerEdge VRTX User's Guide

For information about configuring CMC network settings, see Configuring Initial CMC Network. This initial configuration assigns the TCP/IP networking parameters that enable access to CMC.

CMC and iDRAC on each server and the network management ports for the switch I/O module are connected to a common integrated network in the PowerEdge VRTX chassis. This allows the management network to be isolated from the server data network. It is important to separate this traffic for uninterrupted access to chassis management.

CMC is connected to the management network. All external access to CMC and iDRACs is achieved through CMC. Access to the managed servers, conversely, is accomplished through network connections to the I/O module (IOM). This allows the application network to be isolated from the management network.

It is recommended to isolate chassis management from the data network. Due to the potential of traffic on the data network, the management interfaces on the internal management network can be saturated by traffic intended for servers. This results in CMC and iDRAC communication delays. These delays may cause unpredictable chassis behavior, such as CMC displaying iDRAC as offline even when it is up and running, which in turn causes other unwanted behavior. If physically isolating the management network is impractical, the other option is to separate CMC and iDRAC traffic to a separate VLAN. CMC and individual iDRAC network interfaces can be configured to use a VLAN.