Dell FluidFS Version 6.0 FS8600 Appliance Deployment Guide

PDF

Client Network

Make sure the client network meets the following prerequisites. The client network is used by clients to access SMB shares or NFS exports. It is also the network used for replication, backup, and administration.

■	Prerequisite
□	1GbE or 10GbE switches can be reached from the rack. To ensure high availability to the client network, Dell recommends using a switch stack or Director class switches. Distributing the client network ports across discrete switches/blades in the stack creates a redundant connection to the core network, allowing file access to continue after a single switch failure.
□	Ethernet switch infrastructure has ports available for each FS8600 appliance. Fibre Channel with 1GbE appliance – Eight RJ45 ports for each appliance Fibre Channel with 10GbE appliance or 10GbE iSCSI appliance – Four LC optical or SFP+ (twinax) connections for each appliance
□	All client ports are in the same broadcast domain or port-based VLAN.
□	Switches are configured to use MTU size equal to or greater than the minimum supported MTU. Dell Force10 switches must be configured to use MTU 1554 or greater. Dell PowerConnect switches must be configured to use MTU 1518 or greater. If jumbo frames are used on the client network, the switches and clients must be configured to use MTU 9000.
□	(Recommended but not required) Flow control is enabled on the switches.