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

About FlexAddress

If a server is replaced, the FlexAddress for the slot remains the same for the given server slot. If the server is inserted in a new slot or chassis, the server-assigned WWN/MAC is used unless that chassis has the FlexAddress feature enabled for the new slot. If you remove the server, it reverts to the server-assigned address. You need not reconfigure deployment frameworks, DHCP servers, and routers for various fabrics for identifying the new server.

Every server module is assigned unique WWN and/or MAC addresses as part of the manufacturing process. Without FlexAddress, if a server had to be replaced with another server module, the WWN/MAC addresses changes and Ethernet network management tools and SAN resources had to be reconfigured to identify the new server module.

FlexAddress allows CMC to assign WWN/MAC addresses to a particular slot and override the factory addresses. Hence, if the server module is replaced, the slotbased WWN/MACaddresses remain the same. This feature eliminates the need to reconfigure Ethernet network management tools and SAN resources for a new server module.

Also, the override action occurs only when a server module is inserted in a FlexAddress enabled chassis; no permanent changes are made to the server module. If a server module is moved to a chassis that does not support FlexAddress, the factory-assigned WWN/MAC addresses are used.

CMC VRTX chassis is shipped with the SD card, which supports FlexAddress, FlexAddress Plus, and Extended Storage features. If the VRTX chassis is shipped with an optional second CMC, the second CMC has an SD card that supports only Extended Storage.

The FlexAddress feature card contains a range of MAC addresses. Before installing FlexAddress, you can determine the range of MAC addresses contained on a FlexAddress feature card by inserting the SD card into a USB Memory Card Reader and viewing the pwwn_mac.xml file. This clear text XML file on the SD card contains an XML tag mac_start that is the first starting hex MAC address that is used for this unique MAC address range. The mac_count tag is the total number of MAC addresses that the SD card allocates. The total MAC range allocated can be determined by:

<mac_start> + <mac_count>  - 1 = <mac_end>

(starting_mac)00188BFFDCFA + (mac_count)0xCF - 1 = (ending_mac)00188BFFDDC8