Dell PowerEdge MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine
High-performance, scalable 25 Gigabit Ethernet fabric switch with multi-chassis fabric scaling capabilities for the PowerEdge MX platform
Overview
The Dell EMC Networking MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine is a scalable, high-performance, low latency 25Gbps Ethernet switch purpose-built for the PowerEdge MX platform providing enhanced capabilities and cost-effectiveness for the enterprise, mid-market, Tier 2 cloud and NFV service providers with demanding compute and storage traffic environments.
Delivering industry leading performance in a modular switch, the non-blocking switching architecture in the MX9116n provides line-rate 25GbE L2 and L3 forwarding capacity to all connected servers with no oversubscription and a sub 450ns latency. In addition to 16 internal 25GbE ports, the MX9116n provides four QSFP28 100GbE ports for uplinks and twelve QSFP28-Double Density ports. These QSFP28-DD ports provide capacity for additional uplinks, ICLs, connections to rack servers at 10GbE or 25GbE via breakout cables, and fabric expansion connections for up to 9 additional MX7000 chassis.
Maximum performance and functionality
The Dell EMC Networking MX9116n is a high-performance, multifunction, 25GbE Fabric Switching Engine purpose-built for applications in demanding data center, cloud and computing environments. The MX9116n also supports the open source Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) for zero touch installation of alternate operating systems in future releases.
Built-in convergence capabilities
The MX9116n is fully IEEE data center bridging (DCB) compliant, supporting iSCSI, NAS, and FCoE transit. Two of the QSFP28 ports can support eight 32Gb Fibre Channel connections (4 per QSFP28), enabling direct attachment of a FC storage array and as a NPIV Proxy Gateway to an existing FC SAN.
MX Scalable Fabric Architecture
The MX Scalable Fabric Architecture allows the MX9116n to seamlessly support up to 80 MX compute sleds and 10 MX7000 chassis via the ultra-low latency MX7116n Fabric Expander Module.
SmartFabric OS10
The Dell EMC Networking SmartFabric OS10 is a Network Operating System supporting multiple architectures and environments. The networking world is moving from a monolithic stack to a pick-your-own-world. The OS10 solution is designed to allow multi-layered disaggregation of network functionality. While OS10 contributions to Open Source provide users freedom and flexibility to pick their own 3rd party networking, monitoring, management and orchestration applications, OS10 bundles an industry hardened networking stack featuring standard L2 and L3 protocols over a standard and well accepted CLI interface.
SmartFabric Services
Included in SmartFabric OS10, SmartFabric Services provides single pane of glass management and automation across every fabric in a PowerEdge MX deployment, up to the 20 chassis Multi-Chassis Management group limit. SmartFabric Services key features include:
- I/O Aggregation to simplify connectivity to existing networks
- Integration of VLAN and automated QoS settings with Server Deployment Templates
- Fabric-wide firmware upgrades and configuration consistency checks
- Automatic topology validation – detects physical topology misconfigurations and provides corrective guidance
- Automatically heals fabric upon failure condition removal
Features
Key applications
- Organizations looking to enter the software-defined data center era with a choice of networking technologies designed to deliver the flexibility they need
- Native high-density 25 GbE server access in high-performance data center environments
- 25 GbE backward compatible to 10G and 1G for future proofing and data center server migration to faster uplink speeds
- Capability to support 25G and 10G rack mount servers
- iSCSI storage deployment including DCB converged lossless transactions
- Suitable as a ToR or Leaf switch in 100G leaf/spine CLOS Fabric implementations
Key features
- Up to 6.4Tbps of switching I/O bandwidth (full duplex) available and non-blocking switching fabric delivering line-rate performance under full load with sub 450ns latency
- Scalable L2 and L3 Ethernet switching with QoS and a full complement of standards-based IPv4 and IPv6 features, including OSPF and BGP routing support
- Up to eight 32Gb Fibre Channel connections supporting both NPG and Direct Attach FC configurations
- L2 multipath support via Virtual Link Trunking (VLT) and multiple VLT (mVLT) multi-chassis link aggregation technology
- NVMe-oF ready to support the next generation of high performance storage
- Jumbo frame support for large data transfers
- 128 link aggregation groups with up to sixteen members per group, using enhanced hashing
- Converged network support for DCB, with priority flow control
- (802.1Qbb), ETS (802.1Qaz), DCBx and iSCSI TLV support
- Supports Routable RoCE to enable convergence of compute and storage
Key features with OS10
- Consistent DevOps framework across compute, storage and networking elements
- Standard networking features, interfaces and scripting functions for legacy network operations integration
- Standards-based switching hardware abstraction via Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI)
- Pervasive, unrestricted developer environment via Control Plane Services (CPS)
- Open and programmatic management interface via Common Management Services (CMS)
- OS10 software enables Dell EMC layer 2 and 3 switching and routing protocols with integrated IP Services
- Quality of Service, Manageability and Automation features
- Platform agnostic via standard hardware abstraction layer (OCP-SAI)
- Unmodified Linux kernel and unmodified Linux distribution
- Leverage common open source tools and best-practices (data models, commit rollbacks)
- Scalable L2 and L3 Ethernet Switching with QoS, ACL and a full complement of standards based IPv4 and IPv6 features including OSPF, BGP and PBR
- Enhanced mirroring capabilities including local mirroring, Remote Port Mirroring (RPM), and Encapsulated Remote Port Mirroring (ERPM)
- Converged network support for DCB, with priority flow control (802.1Qbb), ETS (802.1Qaz), DCBx and iSCSI TLV
- Rogue NIC control provides hardware-based protection from NICS sending out excessive pause frames
Technical Specifications
| Optics |
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|---|---|
| Cables |
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| Software |
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Physical
- Full featured 25/100GE switch in PowerEdge MX Fabric A/B I/O sled form factor
- 1 USB 2.0 type A storage port
- 1 micro USB type B port for console/management port access
- Indicators:
- Power/Health LED
- ID LED
- Link/activity LEDs
- Size: 1.18”h x 17.11”w x 10.94”d
- Weight: 8.49lbs (3.85kg)
- Max. power consumption: 260 Watts w/5W QSFP28-DD Optics
- Typ. power consumption: 237 Watts w/5W QSFP28-DD Optics
- Max. operating specifications:
- Standard Operating Temperature 10°C to 35°C (50°F to 95°F)
- Operating Relative Humidity 5% to 85%, non-condensing
- Max. non-operating specifications:
- Storage temperature: -40°C to 65°C (-40°F to 149°F)
- Storage humidity: 5 to 95% (RH), non-condensing
- Expanded Operating Temperature, Continuous Operation: Not Supported
Redundancy
- Redundant Power and Cooling provided by Dell EMC PowerEdge MX7000 Chassis
Performance
- Switching I/O bandwidth: 6.4Tbps
- Forwarding capacity: 2380 Mpps
- Latency: Sub 450ns
- MAC addresses: 137K
- IPv4 Unicast routes: 130K
- IPv6 Unicast routes: 130K
- ARP entries: 48K
- Layer 2 VLANs: 60K P*V in Full Switch mode
- Layer 3 VLANs: 30K P*V in Full Switch mode
- MST: 32 instances
- PVST+: 128 instances
- LAG: 128 groups, 16 members per LAG group
- ACL Entries-Layer 2 Egress: 1020
- ACL Entries-Layer 2 Ingress: 767
- ACL Entries-IPv4 Egress: 767
- ACL Entries-IPv4 Ingress: 767
- ACL Entries-IPv6 Egress: 512
- ACL Entries-IPv6 Ingress: 767
- iSCSI Number of sessions: 256
- Jumbo Frames: 9K
IEEE Compliance
- 802.1AB LLDP
- TIA-1057 LLDP-MED
- 802.3ad Link Aggregation
- 802.1D Bridging, STP
- 802.1p L2 Prioritization
- 802.1Q VLAN Tagging
- 802.1Qbb PFC
- 802.1Qaz ETS
- 802.1X Network Access Control
- 802.3ac Frame Extensions for VLAN Tagging
- 802.3x Flow Control
Layer2 Protocols
- 802.1D Compatible
- 802.1p L2 Prioritization
- 802.1Q VLAN Tagging
- 802.1s MSTP
- 802.1w RSTP
- 802.1t RPVST+
- 7348 VxLAN
VLT (Virtual Link Trunking)
- VRRP Active/Active
- RSTP, MSTP & RPVST+
- Port Mirroring on VLT ports
- DCB, iSCSI, FSB on VLT
- RPM/ERPM over VLT
- VLT Minloss upgrade
- VxLAN with VLT
- IGML/MLD snooping over VLT
- PIM SM/SSM over VLT
RFC Compliance
- 768 UDP
- 793 TCP
- 854 Telnet
- 959 FTP
- 1321 MD5
- 1350 TFTP
- 2474 Differentiated Services
- 2698 Two Rate Three Color Marker
- 3164 Syslog
- 4254 SSHv2
General IPv4 Protocols
- 791 IPv4
- 792 ICMP
- 826 ARP
- 1027 Proxy ARP
- 1035 DNS (client)
- 1042 Ethernet Transmission
- 1191 Path MTU Discovery
- 1305 NTPv4
- 1519 CIDR
- 1812 Routers, Static Routes
- 1858 IP Fragment Filtering
- 2131 DHCPv4 (server and relay)
- 5798 VRRPv3
- 3021 31-bit Prefixes
- 1812 Requirements for IPv4 Routers
- 1918 Address Allocation for Private Internets
- 2474 Diffserv Field in IPv4 and Ipv6 Headers
- 3195 Reliable Delivery for Syslog
- 3246 Expedited Forwarding PHB Group
General IPv6 Protocols
- 1981 Path MTU for IPv6
- 2372 IPv6 Addressing
- 2460 IPv6 Protocol Specification
- 2461 Neighbor Discovery
- 2462 Stateless Address AutoConfig
- 2463 ICMPv6
- 2464 Ethernet Transmission
- 2675 IPv6 Jumbogramst
- 3493 Basic Socket Interface
- 3542 Advanced Socket, API
- 3587 Global Unicast Address Format
- 3848 Default Address Selection
- 4291 IPv6 Addressing
- 3633 DHCPv6 Relay
- IPv6 Static Routes
- 2464 Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Ethernet Networks
- 2711 IPv6 Router Alert
- 4007 IPv6 Scoped Address Architecture
- 4213 Basic Transition Mechanisms for IPv6 Hosts and Routers
OSPF (v2/v3)
- 1745 OSPF/BGP interaction
- 1765 OSPF Database overflow
- 2154 OSPF with Digital Signatures
- 2328 OSPFv2
- 2370 Opaque LSA
- 3101 OSPF NSSA
- 4552 OSPFv3 Authentication
Multicast
- 2236 IGMPv2 Snooping
- 3810 MLDv2 Snooping
Security
- 1492 TACACS (Authentication, Accounting, Authorization)
- 2865 RADIUS
- 3162 RADIUS and IPv6
- 3579 RADIUS support for EAP
- 3580 802.1X with RADIUS
- 3826 AES Cipher in SNMP
- Control Plane, VTY ACLS
- IP Access Control Lists
BGP
- 1997 Communities
- 2385 MD5
- 2439 Route Flap Damping
- 2545 BGP-4 Multiprotocol Extensions for IPv6 Inter-Domain Routing
- 2796 Route Reflection
- 2858 Multiprotocol Extensions
- 2918 Route Refresh
- 3065 Confederations
- 4271 BGP-4
- 4360 Extended Communities
- 4893 4-byte ASN
- 5396 4-byte ASN Representation
- 5492 Capabilities Advertisement
- 5549 BGP Unnumbered
- BGP ADD PATH
- BGP to OSPF route distribution
- BGP EVPN
- L2 & L3 Gateway with VxLAN Tunnels
- BGP EVPN Asymmetric IRB
- Symmetric IRB
- Type 5 Routes
Linux Distribution
- Debian Linux version 8
- Linux Kernel 3.16
MIBS
- BRIDGE-MIB
- ENTITY-MIB
- EtherLike-MIB
- HOST-RESOURCES-V2-MIB
- IEEE8021-PFC-MIB
- IEEE8023-LAG-MIB
- IF-MIB IP-FORWARD-MIB
- IP-MIB
- LLDP-EXT-DOT1-MIB
- LLDP-EXT-DOT3-MIB
- LLDP-MIB OSPF-MIB
- OSPFV3-MIB
- Q-BRIDGE-MIB (Get)
- RFC1213-MIB
- SFLOW-MIB
- SNMP-FRAMEWORK-MIB
- SNMP-MPD-MIB
- SNMPv2-MIB
- TCP-MIB
- UDP-MIB
- SNMP-USER-BASED-SM-MIB
- SNMP-VIEW-BASED-ACM-MIB
- SNMP-TARGET-MIB
Network Management and Monitoring
- SNMPv1/v2c/v3
- IPv4/IPv6 Management support (Telnet, FTP, TACACS, RADIUS, SSH, NTP)
- Port Mirroring
- RPM/ERPM
- 3176 SFlow
- Support Assist (Phone Home)
- RestConf APIs, Auto-docs
- XML Schema
- CLI Commit (Scratchpad)
- Uplink Failure Detection
- Object Tracking
- FarEnd Failure Detection
- Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) – BGPv4/6, OSPFv2/3, Static
- Routes
- Streaming Telemetry
- System, Buffers, Data monitoring
- gRPC Transport with gPB encoding
Automation
- Control Plane Services APIs
- Linux Utilities and Scripting Tools
- CLI Automation (Multiline Alias)
- Ansible, Puppet, Chef, SaltStack
- Zero Touch Deployment (ZTD)
- 3rd party packages support on Docker
- Container
Quality of Service
- Prefix List
- Route-Map
- Rate Shaping (Egress)
- Rate Policing (Ingress)
- Scheduling Algorithms
- Round Robin
- Weighted Round Robin
- Deficit Round Robin
- Strict Priority
- Weighted Random Early Detect
Data center bridging
- 802.1Qbb Priority-Based Flow Control
- 802.1Qaz Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS)
- Explicit Congestion Notification
- Data Center Bridging eXchange (DCBx)
- DCBx Application TLV (iSCSI, FCoE)
- RoCEv2
Fibre Channel
- l FIP Snooping
Regulatory compliance
Safety
- UL/CSA 60950-1, Second Edition
- EN 60950-1, Second Edition
- IEC 60950-1, Second Edition Including all National Deviations and Group Differences
- EN 60825-1 Safety of Laser Products Part 1: Equipment Classification Requirements and User’s Guide
- EN 60825-2 Safety of Laser Products Part 2: Safety of Optical Fiber Communication Systems
- FDA Regulation 21 CFR 1040.10 and 1040.11
Emissions & Immunity
- Australia/New Zealand: AS/NZS CISPR 32:2015, Class A
- Canada: ICES-3/NMB-3, Class A
- Europe: EN 55024:2010 (CISPR 24:2010), Class A
- Japan: VCCI V-3/2010.04 Class A
- USA: FCC CFR 47 Part 15, Subpart B:2011, Class A Immunity
- EN 300 386 V1.6.1 EMC for Network Equipment
- EN 55024:2010
- EN 61000-3-2: Harmonic Current Emissions
- EN 61000-3-3: Voltage Fluctuations and Flicker
- EN 61000-4-2: ESD
- EN 61000-4-3: Radiated Immunity
- EN 61000-4-4: EFT
- EN 61000-4-5: Surge
- EN 61000-4-6: Low Frequency Conducted Immunity
RoHS
- EN 50581:2012 All MX5108n components are EU
- RoHS compliant
Pricing Notes: Pricing and product availability subject to change without notice.
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