Introduction

The Dell™ PowerEdge™ M-series blade solution is a breakthrough in enterprise server architecture. Built from the ground up using Dell’s Energy Smart and FlexIO technologies, the M-series is designed to combat data center sprawl and IT complexity. The M-series delivers one of the most energy efficient, flexible, and manageable blade server products on the market.

The MXL 10/40GbE Switch is a layer 2/ 3 blade switch with two fixed 40GbE ports on the base module and support for two optional plug-in modules. The switch operates in a PowerEdge M1000e Enclosure, which can support up to 32 servers and six MXL 10/40GbE Switches. This switch runs the Dell Networking operating system (OS), providing switching, bridging, and routing functionality for transmitting data, storage, and server traffic. The switch also supports data center bridging (DCB) features, and optimizes connectivity between servers and storage devices over Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and internet small computer system interface (iSCSI) links. For a smooth data transmission in data centers, most administrators of large infrastructures rely on these MXL 10/40GbE switches. If the switches malfunction or do not respond, then, data may not be transmitted from the data centers at a faster pace which would directly have an impact on the end users. Administrators should therefore monitor the switches in their environment 24*7. Let us now deep-dive into the procedure to monitor the Dell Switch M-Series monitoring model in the forthcoming chapters.