Dell PowerEdge MX-Series Storage Options and Use Cases Owner's Manual, User Guide

Direct from Development Power Edge Product Group

Power Edge MX-Series Storage Options and Use Cases

Background Technical Note by: In many cases, workloads are now optimized for specific storage solutions. Virtualization environments benefit from the low latency, high capacity capabilities

Brad Lawrence of Software Defined Storage (SDS). Scale-up In-memory Databases benefit from Eric Kuzmack locally attached SSD’s for faster Database loading and Scale-out In-memory

Todd Mottershead Databases require low latency shared storage solutions like SAN for shared access to data and fast database loading.

SUMMARY

Adding to this complexity is wealth of options available for connection to storage environments. Traditional storage attach would include Fibre Channel (FC) or

Storage technologies have been

i SCSI and in recent years, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCo E). Conversely,

evolving at an accelerated rate

newer technologies, like SDS, benefit from large pools of locally attached SAS

driven primarily by changes in

storage using internal drive and/or JBOD enclosures.

workloads. Solutions like

virtualization, big data and in- MX storage connectivity options

memory databases utilize storage

To meet these diverse needs, the MX-Series has been designed to deliver a

in very different ways. This

wealth of storage connectivity options. Traditional SAN connections are available

evolution results in customers

through a pair of redundant Brocade 32Gb FC switches. In environments where

needing flexibility in their server

SAS is required, the FC switches can be replaced with a pair of redundant SAS

infrastructure to meet these switches that connect to the optional MX5016s drive sled, with future support for diverse needs. external SAS JBOD enclosures. Traditional i SCSI, FCo E, and FC NPIV support is

built into the integrated network switches and customers have the option to also

The Power Edge MX-Series has

use these devices to connect directly to a Dell EMC or 3rd party SAN.

been designed specifically to reduce this complexity while at the

FC Direct Connect /

same time, deliver the robust,

FCo E / i SCSI

flexible storage architecture that customers need to optimize for all of these environments.

FC Direct Connect / FCo E / i SCSI FC or SAS

FC direct connect allows a Fibre Channel storage array to connect directly to the MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine (FSE) without the use of external FC switches. In this mode, SAN access becomes available to all servers in the connected chassis as well as all servers installed in the chassis that are connected to the MX Scalable Fabric.

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