Dell Networking Operating System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:26, 28 April 2014

Revision as of 09:10, 29 April 2014

Line 7:

* DNOS 6.x: This is the operating system running on the Dell Networking N-series (campus) networking switches. It is the latest version of the 'PowerConnect' operating system, running on a Linux Kernel. It is available as upgrade for the PowerConnect 8100 series switches (which then become a Dell Networking N40xx switch) and it also is installed on all DN N2000 and N3000 series switches. It has a full web-based GUI together with a full CLI (command line interface) and the CLI will be very similar to the original PowerConnect CLI, though with a range of new features like PVSTP (per VLAN spanning tree), Policy Based Routing and [[MLAG]].

* DNOS 9.x: This is the operating system running on Dell Networking S- and Z- series switches and is a further developmentg of the [[FTOS]] or Force10 Operating System. Standard DNOS 9.x (and FTOS) only offers a CLI and no GUI, although with the automation toolset it is possible to create your own webGUI on DNOS9 / FTOS switches. DNOS 9.x is running on [[NetBSD]].<br>

Only the PowerConnect 8100 will be able to run on DNOS 6.x: all other PowerConnect ethernet switches will continue to run it'sits own PowerConnect OS (on top of VxWorks) while the PowerConnect W-series run on a Dell specific version of ArubaOS.

The Dell Networking S- xxxx and Z9x00 series will run on DNOS where the other Dell Networking switches will continue to run FTOS 8.x firmware.

Line 34:

==Open Automation==

Under the name OpenAutomation 2.0 Dell Networking switches running [[DNOS]] 9.x offers a number of features under this name. These features include:<ref name="oa2">[http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/solutions/force10-open-automation?c=us&l=en&s=biz Dell Force10 Open Automation 2.0], visited 29 May 2013</ref>

===Smart Scripting===

Line 43:

===Virtual server networking===

Part of the Open Automation platform are special features for the use of virtualisation in your datacenter. Virtualisation allows you to create complete (virtual) server-systems running on a standard hypervisor farm. This will create new challenges for networking in such a datacenter, support automated configuration of datacenter switches to connect newly created virtual servers. The open automation platform has several features to support this.<ref name="twp">Technical Whitepaper: [http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/Network-Automation-with-the_Dell-Force10-Open-Automation-Framework-whitepaper-20110919.pdf Network automation with F10 Open Automation Framework], downloaded 25 May 2013</ref>

.

===Network Automation===

Line 50 ⟶ 49:

==Alternative OS==

On some models Dell Networking switches (currently the S4810 and S6000) it is possible to run an alternative network OS: [[Cumulus Networks#Cumulus Linux|Cumulus Linux]]. This will run instead of DNOS on top of NetBSD. Cumulus Linux is a complete Linux distribution which uses the full TCP/IP stack of Linux.<ref>IT Online: [http://it-online.co.za/2014/02/07/dell-decouples-hardware-and-software/ Dell decouples hardware and software], 7 February, 2014. visited: 28 April, 2014</ref>.

==Sources and references==