Dell Networking
Dell Networking is the name for the networking portfolio of Dell. In the first half of 2013, Dell started to rebrand their different existing networking product brands to Dell Networking. Dell Networking is the name for the networking equipment that was known as Dell PowerConnect, as well as the Force10 portfolio.
History
Dell used to be mainly a so-called box-shifter: they produced computers that could be bought directly from Dell, but they didn't offer complete solutions. With the acquisition of Perot Systems, Dell entered the, more profitable, services market and also expanded on the software and system-management-market by acquiring KACE Networks, Quest Software, AppAssure and Credant Technologies. Other notable acquisitions include storage systems like EqualLogic, thin-client producer Wyse and firewall/security producer SonicWall.Networking
In 2011, Dell took over high-end network-equipment producer Force10 Networks, which mainly produced multi-layer switches for data center environments, bringing Dell to the market for enterprise and datacenter class network equipment. Before that point, Dell did not produce their own network equipment: the switches that were sold under the brand PowerConnect were products designed and built for Dell by 3rd parties such as Broadcom and Marvell Technology Group. Dell also offered existing products from other suppliers with PowerConnect branding, such as the B-series for Brocade switches or J-series for Juniper switches. But by buying Force10 and later network-security provider SonicWall, the company now had its own intellectual property networking systems and stopped selling most J- and B-series switches, but continued to offer the legacy PowerConnect products made by Broadcom and Marvell with some overlap in the Force10 products.In 2013, Dell begun the process to fully integrate these two product lines and rebrand the entire portfolio into Dell Networking, all running on Dell Networking Operating System. All new networking products were to be marketed under the new name Dell Networking with a standardized naming-convention: Dell Networking -. Most existing PowerConnect products kept their existing names until they went end of sales, when they would be replaced by new Dell Networking products or be rebranded to the new naming convention.
Product families
The Dell Networking products will come in several families. The new naming system will partially follow the existing Force10 naming system: E-series for chassis-based modular switches, C-series for chassis-based datacenter-access switches, S-series rack switches and Z-series for distributed core-switches.- Z series: Datacenter distributed core switches: 3 models, the original Z9000, 2 RU high with 32 x 40 Gbit/s QSFP+ Ethernet ports and its follow up Z9500, 3RU high with up to 132 x 40 Gb QSFP+ slots. and the Z9100 including 100 Gb interfaces.
- C series: Chassis based campus access/core switches: 2 original models, C150 and C300 for 1 and 10 Gbit/s and the new C9010 system supporting external port-extenders, where specific N-series models can be used as chassis managed port extender.
- E series: Virtualized core chassis-based switches. campus, office or data center aggregation/core switches: 3 models for 1 and 10 Gbit/s aggregation.
- S series: Fixed form-factor datacenter switches for 1, 10 and 40 Gbit/s Ethernet.
- X series: simple web-managed layer2 or l2+ campus switches based on Marvell networks chipset.
- W series: existing PowerConnect Wireless range which are OEM-versions of the Aruba Networks portfolio.
- M series: MXL and MIO modules running DNOS9.x and the existing PowerConnect M blade switches for the Dell M1000e chassis system including smaller versions of the MIOA/MXL switches for the FX2 mini chassis.
- N series: Campus access and aggregation switches with models for PoE+ offering 10 Gb or 40 Gb uplinks to the core. N-series switches run DNOS6.x on a Linux kernel.
- Legacy Powerconnect switches
Current portfolio
Dell PowerConnect
. The current portfolio of Dell PowerConnect rack switches consists of the following series:- Power connect 2800 series: web-managed 10/100/1000 Ethernet switches
- Power connect 3500 series: managed 10/100 Mb layer 2 switches
- Power connect 5500 series: managed 10/100/1000 Mb layer 2 switches
- Power connect 6200 series: managed multi-layer gigabit Ethernet switches
- Power connect 7000 series: managed multi-layer gigabit Ethernet switches
- Power connect 8100 series: managed multi-layer ten gigabit Ethernet switches
PowerConnect 2800
The Dell Networking PCT2800 web-managed switches are entry-level Ethernet switches that only offer a web-based GUI management interface. There are 4 models offering between 8 and 48 ports per switch. The interfaces on the switches are all copper-based gigabit Ethernet-ports and the 24 and 48 ports switches offer 2 or 4 'combo' ports where the last 2 ports can use either the RJ45/UTP 1000BaseT copper-interface or a fiber SFP transceiver for uplinks to a distribution or core switch. All switches offer standard features like VLANs, link-aggregation, auto-negotiation for speed- and duplex setting. The MAC address-table can hold up to 8000 MAC addresses in its forwarding table and have a 2 Mb packet-buffering capacity.PowerConnect 3500
The PowerConnect 3500 series switches are Ethernet access-switches which comes in 4 models: the PCT3524 and PCT3548 with 24 resp 48 10/100 Mb Ethernet ports and the PCT3524P / PCT3548P with 24 or 48 10/100 Mb with PoE option to power VOIP phones, Wifi Access-points or IP cameras. All models can be provided with a redundant power supply for either pure redundant power or to provide a full PoE power budget for the 48 ports PoE switch. The technical specifications of the 'non-PoE' and the 'PoE' models are the same in regards to switching capabilities and the main difference between the 24 and 48 port models is the total forwarding rate of the switch: 12,8 Gbit/s for both 24 port models and 17,6 Gbit/s for the 48 port models. As with the PCT2800 models the MAC address table can hold up to 8000 MAC addresses.Apart from all standard layer2 switching capabilities as VLAN's, link aggregation ports for high-speed uplinks to distribution or core switches or for stacking of switches and two gigabits SFP ports for a 1 Gbit/s fiber transceiver for uplinks to distribution/core layer.
PowerConnect 5500
The PowerConnect 5500 series switches are gigabit Ethernet access-switches, available in 4 models: either a 24 or 48 port gigabit Ethernet switch or a 24/48 port gigabit Ethernet switch with Power-over-Ethernet option. Regardless of the model, the switches offer two HDMI ports for stacking and two SFP+ 10Gbit transceiver ports for 10Gb uplinks.The technical specifications of the 4 models are all the same, except for the number of ports and the PoE feature and the total switching capacity of 128 Gbit/s or 176 Gbit/s with a MAC address table size of 16.000 entries, up to 4000 VLAN's, support for link-aggregation, VLAN tagging, dot1x security, and dynamic VLAN assignment, etc.
Although the switches are mainly layer-2 Ethernet switches they do offer some IP features like static routing, IP or MAC-based access-lists, DHCP snooping, quality of service options and IGMP features. Up to 8 switches out of the 5500 series can be stacked, using the built-in HDMI stack-ports, to form one logical switch. The switch also offers special features for a voice-VLAN as well as extensive options for dot1x security and dynamic VLAN assignment via RADIUS or TACACS+ server. For better energy efficiency the switch also offers Energy-Efficient Ethernet or EEE allowing the switch to negotiate a lower link-speed on access-interfaces when the connected client doesn't require the full bandwidth, and when the connected client requires more bandwidth than the active link speed it will negotiate a higher speed. The PCT5500 series support Spanning-tree, Rapid Spanning-tree, and Multiple spanning-tree. The default setting is rapid-spanning tree.
Other features offered by the PCT5500 series is port-mirroring, jumbo-frame support, dynamic ARP inspection, IGMP snooping, private VLAN configuration, LLDP/LLDP-MED, management-access-lists, etc.
The two PoE enabled switches can offer up to 15.4 watts of power to each of the 24 or 48 copper gigabit interfaces. To provide power to more than 24 ports, an extra 'redundant power supply' must be installed on the PCT5548P. In case of the failure of one of the power supplies, PoE priorities can be set to continue to give PoE power to the most important devices and switch off less important devices.