Dell PowerEdge M1000e Blade and EqualLogic PS Series 10 GbE SAN Design Best Practices, Owner' manuals for Dell Vostro 3660 3669 are provided separately.
Summary
This technical white paper presents best practices for designing 10 GbE SAN solutions using Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade enclosures with EqualLogic PS Series storage arrays. The manual covers blade chassis architecture, multiple fabric configurations, network topology recommendations, and storage connectivity guidelines. Designed for storage architects, infrastructure engineers, and IT professionals planning Dell blade server and iSCSI storage deployments.
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Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equal Logic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices A Dell Equal Logic Best Practices Technical White Paper
Storage Infrastructure and Solutions Engineering Dell Product Group October 2012
Page Summary Contents For Dell PowerEdge M1000e Blade and EqualLogic PS Series 10 GbE SAN Design Best Practices, Owner' manuals for Dell Vostro 3660 3669 are provided separately.
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Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equal Logic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices A Dell Equal Logic Best Practices Technical White Paper Storage Infrastructure and Solutions Engineer...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever wi...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.2.3 Results ....................................................................................
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Acknowledgements This white paper was produced by the PG Storage Infrastructure and Solutions t...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 1 Introduction With the Dell™ Equal Logic™ PS Series storage arrays, Dell provides a storage so...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices ISL – An inter-switch link that connects either the two blade IOM switches or the two TOR switc...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices can be a stack or a LAG. The ISL is necessary to create a single layer 2 SAN Fabric over which ...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 2 Overview of M1000e blade chassis solution The following section describes the M1000e blade ch...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 2.2 Blade IO modules The following table lists the 10 Gb E blade IO module options (available a...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 3 Summary of SAN designs and recommendations This section provides the high level conclusions r...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Switch tier Ease of High topology administration Performance availability Scalability Blade Mul...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 3.3 High availability In both the TOR and blade IOM switch failure scenarios, all tested SAN de...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4 Tested SAN designs The following section describes each tested M1000e blade chassis SAN desig...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Figure 3 Blade IOM switch only with ISL stack
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.1.2 M8024-k switch with ISL LAG This SAN design provides 30 Gbps of ISL bandwidth between the...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Figure 4 Blade IOM switch only with ISL LAG
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.2 TOR switch only These SAN designs include configurations where the blade server host ports ...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Figure 5 TOR switch only with ISL stack
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.2.2 PC8024F switch with ISL LAG This SAN design provides 30 Gbps of ISL bandwidth between the...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Figure 6 TOR switch only with ISL stack
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.3 Blade IOM switch with TOR switch These SAN designs include configurations in which the Equa...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.3.1 M8024-k/PC8024F switches with three-way LAG This SAN design uses the 10 Gb E SFP+ ports o...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Figure 7 Blade IOM switch with TOR switch and a three-way LAG
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 4.4 Summary table of tested SAN designs The following table assumes one fully populated M1000e ...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5 Detailed SAN design analysis and recommendations The following section examines each M1000e b...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices The blade IOM switch only SAN design requires the fewest cables, with only the array member por...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.2 Performance The second criterion by which SAN designs will be evaluated is their performanc...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.2.2 Bandwidth All SAN designs provide different amounts of ISL bandwidth between the two swit...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.2.3 Results The following three figures show the relative aggregate vdbench throughput of all...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 256 KB sequential I/O, read workload The following figure shows the aggregate vdbench throughpu...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 256 KB sequential I/O, write workload The following figure shows the aggregate vdbench throughp...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices To test SAN design high availability, an ungraceful switch power down was executed while the SA...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.3.2 Blade IOM switch failure The following table shows how each SAN design is affected by the...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.4 Scalability The final criterion by which SAN designs will be evaluated is scalability. Note...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.4.2 TOR switch only The following two tables show the scalability data for TOR switch only de...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.4.3 Blade IOM and TOR switch The following table shows the scalability data for Blade IOM and...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices 5.4.4 Recommendations The following recommendations assume two M8024-k switches or two pass-thr...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Appendix A Solution infrastructure detail The following table is a detailed inventory of the ha...
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BP1042 Dell Power Edge M1000e Blade Enclosure and Equallogic PS Series 10 Gb E SAN Design Best Practices Appendix B Vdbench parameters Vdbench workloads were executed using the following parameters in...
Manual Details
| Brand | Best |
|---|---|
| Pages | 42 |
| File Size | 1.61 MB |
| Published | May 16, 2026 |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the tested SAN design options for the M1000e enclosure?
Options include Blade IOM switch only, TOR switch only, or combined Blade IOM and TOR switch configurations.
What is the purpose of the Vdbench parameters in the appendix?
They define common parameters for random and sequential iSCSI IO workloads, including transfer sizes and read/write percentages.
Where can I find additional resources for EqualLogic configuration and best practices?
Visit Support.dell.com for support services and DellTechCenter.com for IT community resources and knowledge sharing.