Start a Conversation

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

98996

March 31st, 2014 11:00

Enabling Flowcontrol on a Powerconnect 6248

Can flowcontrol be enabled for a live Powerconnect switch without disrupting connections? I currently have one of my 6248's dedicated to an iSCSI network which is live. Do I need to shut everything down to enable flowcontrol? John

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

March 31st, 2014 11:00

I would expect and anticipate a brief moment of disruption in traffic. There is no need to reboot the switch, but i would schedule some downtime/non peak hours.

March 31st, 2014 12:00

Flow control is currently disabled... My fear is that I will cause data corruption if I do this on the live network. If you feel that it is safe to do with active iSCSI connections then I will proceed. John

March 31st, 2014 12:00

Thank you Daniel... This switch is used as a dedicated iSCSI network switch... So I would assume that I have to shut everything down? John

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

March 31st, 2014 12:00

You would not need to reboot the switch. There are not configuration changes to the storage devices, so i would not think you need to reboot them.

On the 6248 with firmware3.x.x flow control is enabled by default. So it could already be enabled. You can check with this command

#show interfaces configuration

Here are a couple documents with some good information that may help answer some questions you have.

http://partnerdirect.dell.com/sites/channel/Documents/EqualLogic_iSCSI_Optimization_for_Dell_PowerConnect_Switches_White_Paper.pdf

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pwcnt/en/Flow-Control-and-Network-performance-with-PowerConnect.pdf

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

March 31st, 2014 12:00

I would schedule to do this during a maintenance window. Always better to be on the safe side. During the maintenance window just ensure the iSCSI devices are not being accessed, if you want to power them down it won't hurt anything. You could also update the switch to latest firmware. Depending on what firmware the switch is currently on, the new firmware can add some iSCSI improvements.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/EN/04/product-support/product/powerconnect-6248/drivers

No Events found!

Top