Dell ECS EX Series, Hardware Manual

Page: 72 / 112

Network connections between multiple ECS
appliances in a single site
The private.4 network interconnects multiple, co-located ECS intra-rack networks into a single inter-rack network through
VLAN 4. Ports 41 - 44 are used to create port channel 100 and ports 45 through 48 are used to create port channel 101 on the
back-end switch. Port channels 100 and 101 are used to connect to other intra-rack LANs.
NOTE: The private.4 network is also referred to as the Nile Area Network (NAN).
The ECS intra-rack backend management networks are connected together to create the inter-rack topology. By connecting
either port channel 100 or 101 to another private switch from another ECS intra-rack network, the inter-rack network is created.
Through these connections, nodes from any intra-rack network can communicate to any other node on the inter-rack network.
There are three types of topologies you can use to connect the intra-rack LANs into an inter-rack network:
● Daisy chain or line topology
● Ring topology
● Star topology
Linear or daisy chain topology
The simplest topology to connect the intra-racks together does not require any extra equipment. All the private switches can be
connected together in a linear or Daisy chain fashion as demonstrated below.
Figure 58. Linear or Daisy Chain topology
This linear or daisy-chain topology is the least dependable setup and is easily susceptible to split-brain topologies as
demonstrated below.
Figure 59. Split-brain topology
The inter-rack linear topology between EX-Series racks are shown in the following figure.
72 EX300 Platform