Dell Networking is the portfolio of computer networking products produced by Dell. This brand name originated in the first half of 2013 when Dell started to rebrand their former networking-related product brand known as Dell PowerConnect (including the Force10 portfolio).
History Dell used to be mainly a so-called box-shifter: they produced computers that could (only) be bought directly from Dell, but they didn't offer complete solutions. With the acquisition of Perot Systems, Dell entered the, more profitable, services marketFinanz Nachrichten.de Dell to buy Perot systems, September 2009. Retrieved: 17 May 2013 and also expanded on the software and system-management-market by acquiring KACE Networks,NYTimes: Del acquires systems management vendor KACE, 11 February 2010. Retrieved: 17 May 2013 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,TheRegister: Dell buying Force10 Networks, 20 July 2011. Retrieved: 17 May 2013 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 (Ethernet) 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 (instead of FTOS and Powerconnect firmware). 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 (EOS), 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 (core) 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 portsThe Register Force10 cranks Ethernet switches to 40 Gigabits, 26 April 2011. Visited 18 May 2012Video on the Z9000 switch, visited 18 February 2013 and its follow up Z9500, 3RU high with up to 132 x 40 Gb QSFP+ slots.Product specifications for Z9000 and Z9500, visited: 29 May 2014 and the Z9100 including 100 Gb interfaces. C series: Chassis based campus access/core switches: 2 original models, C150 (9RU) and C300 (13RU) for 1 and 10 Gbit/s and the new C9010 system supporting external port-extenders, where specific N-series models can be (re)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.Dell product website Ethernet products Force10 S series, visited 21 January 2012 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
Portfolio Below is an overview of the portfolio of Dell Networking switches, including active models under the PowerConnect name.
Dell PowerConnect (For older products, not longer in active portfolio, please see the Dell PowerConnect page). The current portfolio of Dell PowerConnect rack switches consists of the following series:Overview of Dell Networking switches, visited 20 August 2013 Power connect 2800 series: web-managed(only) 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 (with limited layer3 options) 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
The PowerConnects 2800, 3500 and 5500 are based on Marvell Technology Group equipment while the PowerConnect 6200, 7000, 8100 and the blade-switches PCM6220, PCM6348 and PCM8024(-k) are powered by Broadcom.
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 (resp. 4) 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.Technical specifications overview of PowerConnect 2800 Series LAN Smart Switches, visited: 20 August 2013.
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.General brochure on the PowerConnect 3500 series, September 2010. Visited: 20 August 2013 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 (static and LACP, dot1x access-security and dynamic VLAN assignment, the switches also offer some basic IP routing/layer 3 processing.
All PCT3500 switches offer two-gigabit Ethernet (1000BaseT) 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.Technical specification of the Dell PowerConnect 3500 100 Base-T Series Switches, visited: 20 August 2013
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.General brochure for the Powerconnect 5500 series, 2011. Downloaded: 19 August 2013
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 (24 port) or 176 Gbit/s (48 port)Technical specifications of the Powerconnect 5500 series, visited 20 August 2013 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 (up to 64 static routes), IP or MAC-based access-lists, DHCP snooping, quality of service options and IGMP (multicast) 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 (IEEE 802.3az) 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 (re)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 (full) 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.Dell PCT5500 CLI reference guide; page 359, power-inline priority settings, March 2013 (rev 05), downloaded: 20 August 2013
Managed multi-layer gigabit Ethernet switches Dell Networking offers two main-models for layer3 gigabit Ethernet rack switches: the PowerConnect 6200 series and the PowerConnect 7000 series. In regards to available models for the number of ports, PoE support, and copper/fiber the PCT6200 and PCT7000 models are very similar. The basic features of both models are also very alike, but the PCT7000 series offer a range of additional features that are not available in the PCT6200. Some important differences between the PCT6200 and PCT7000 are that the PCT7000 offers a dedicated 'out-of-band' management interface. Although both switches are stackable, only PCT6200 models or PCT7000 models can be combined in a single stack. The only exception is that it is possible to combine the PCT7000 series with the blade-switch PCM6348 in a single stack. It is not possible to combine a PCT6200 rack switch with a PCM6220 blade-switch.
Common features