Load Balancing; Notable Differences Between S-Series And E-Series - Dell Force10 S2410-01-10GE-24P Configuration Manual

Load Balancing

• LAG Load Balancing: For IPv4 packets, LAG load balancing is provided automatically by a hash
algorithm that is based on an XOR (eXclusive OR) of the 3 LSBs (Least Significant Bits) of the source
and destination IP addresses.
For all other packet types, the 3 LSBs of the source and destination MAC addresses are used. Broadcast,
unknown unicast, and Layer 2 multicast packets are sent over a single port in the LAG. MAC addresses must
be learned first in order for load balancing to take place.
• ECMP Load Balancing: ECMP (Equal Cost Multi-path Routing) is supported for OSPF, not for RIP.
2048 IP routes of the 3072 routes that are supported by SFTOS can be ECMP routes. Six ECMP paths
are supported.
ECMP load balancing is like LAG load balancing in that it is provided automatically by a hash algorithm that
is based on an XOR (eXclusive OR) of the 3 LSBs (Least Significant Bits) of the source and destination IP
addresses.
Use the
maximum-paths
Chapter 20, "OSPF Commands", of the SFTOS Command Reference.

Notable Differences between S-Series and E-Series

This section describes the major differences in how command usage on the S-Series differs from the
E-Series. Users familiar with the E-Series CLI will notice enough similarities in the CLI environment on
the S-Series that they can quickly learn the variations in syntax and usage.
The primary goal of SFTOS Release 2.3 (and associated dot releases) was to make SFTOS more like
FTOS. Of course, there are still differences because FTOS requires more commands, usually with more
detailed options than in SFTOS, to support the more complex E-Series switches.
Note: As you can see in some command descriptions, below, the major difference between
SFTOS and FTOS is that in commands that contain a port reference, FTOS expresses the location
as
number in an S50 stack. For details, see
• The aaa authentication
• CLI command modes: SFTOS Release 2.3 modifies the command mode tree of SFTOS to be more
like FTOS, so that their modes are basically equivalent at the base, differing toward the leaves.
• Creating a static route: The SFTOS command
next-hop router, while
24 | SFTOS Features
command to set the number of paths. For details, see the
, while SFTOS uses
slot/port
command: This FTOS command is available in SFTOS as
in the FTOS also supports physical interfaces. In other words:
ip route
— In SFTOS Layer 3, you can only put an IP address as the source and destination:
ip route
source-ip-address mask destination-ip-address
— In FTOS, you can have a physical interface as a destination as well as an IP address:
ip route
source-ip-address mask
. For physical identifiers, unit is the stack member
unit/slot/port
Port Naming Convention on page
ip route supports only IP addresses for setting the
{
destination interface
maximum-paths
26.
authentication
|
ip address}
command in
.