Appendix B: Basic Terminology - Dell Force10 C150 Manual

Deploying the Dell Force10 MXL into a Cisco Nexus Network Environment

Appendix B: Basic Terminology

Bridging
Bridging—commonly called switching—is frame-by-frame layer-2 forwarding of Ethernet traffic with
forwarding decisions generally based on each frame's source and destination MAC address. A simple
bridge has three available actions to perform on received traffic—filter, forward, or flood. An Ethernet
bridge is very simple and relies on bridging protocols like spanning-tree to not send data frames in a
loop, causing a storm.
Channel Group
See LAG.
CLI
Command Line Interface (CLI) is the text-based console interface that is used for entering management
and configuration commands into devices like the Dell Force10 MXL switch. The MXL's CLI can be
accessed via telnet, SSH, an externally-accessible serial connection, and also from the CMC's CLI.
CMC
Chassis Management Controller (CMC) is the embedded management interface of the Dell PowerEdge™
M1000e blade server chassis. Among other functions, the CMC provides network and console access to
installed IO modules including the Dell Force10 MXL switch.
Filter, Flood, Forward
Data frames received by Ethernet switches may be filtered (meaning discarded or dropped) according
to defined behavior, automatic protocols, or administrative configuration; flooded (meaning sent out
all other links) if the data frame's destination MAC address is unknown; or forwarded (meaning sent to
one other link) if the destination MAC address is already learned. A destination for a MAC address may
be manually configured on a link's interface; but, most MAC address destinations are learned
dynamically based on source MAC addresses of already received data frames—when a bridge receives a
data frame, it remembers the source MAC address of the frame on the received link for five minutes
and will then selectively forward data frames destined for that MAC address over that link as a learned
destination.
IOM
IO module (IOM) refers to the modules at the rear of the Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis that will
receive and transmit I/O (Ethernet, FC, Infiniband, etc.) from the blade servers located at the front of
the chassis. The Dell Force10 MXL switch is as an IOM for the M1000e blade server chassis.
LACP
Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) is the protocol used to ensure that the multiple links in a LAG
do not form loops due to misconfiguration or device misbehavior. It is recommended practice to always
use LACP on configured LAGs.
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