Dell EMC Networking Z9100-ON Z-Series Switch Review

The Dell EMC Networking Switch Z9100-ON Z-Series is a fixed 1U network switch, 10/25/40/50/100GbE, designed to take into account the highest performance. To move this beyond a marketing term, the SCinet with Z9100-ON processor, which is commonly referred to as the "fastest network in the world". The Dell EMC Z9100-ON Z-Series Switch, along with the Dell EMC Networking S4048 S-Series 10GbE Switch, are both part of the latest additions to the StorageReview Enterprise Test Lab's network upgrade. And once again, our review here it examines the switch of the Z-Series Z9100-ON, while at the same time giving the reader a look at why and how we are integrating the switch in our laboratory.

As a wide variety of Dell EMC equipment, the Z9100-ON switch offers customization that allows for greater flexibility. The switch has 128 ports and can be configured to have 32 100 GbE ports, 64 50 GbE ports, 32 40 GbE ports, 128 25 GbE ports or 128 10 GbE ports and two 10 GbE / 1 GbE SFP + ports / 100 Mb. This can help consolidate the rack space and / or help in migration as a data center starts moving at 100 Gbps. The switch also offers organizations a cost-effective method for transitioning to a software-defined data center.

As a multitude of Dell EMC devices, the Z9100-ON Switch offers customization for greater flexibility. The switch has 128 ports and can have 32 100 GbE ports, 64 50 GbE ports, 32 40 GbE ports, 128 25 GbE ports or 128 10 GbE ports and two 10 GbE / 1 GbE SFP + ports. 100 Mb. This can help consolidate rack space and / or support migration when a data center is moving at 100 Gbps. The switch also provides organizations with a cost-effective way to transition to a software-defined data center.

With performance, the Z9100-ON switch takes advantage of the non-blocking switching architecture and offers forwarding capability L2 and L3, along with QoS and a full complement of standards-based IPv4 and IPv6 functions. The switch also incorporates multiple architectural features that are set to optimize the flexibility, efficiency and availability of the data center network. The switch can deliver up to 6.4Tbps of switching I / O bandwidth (full duplex). The multipath support L2 is through virtual trunk link (VLT).

For this power and port level, use cases are still appearing. However, organizations in the Active Fabric deployment process or small Active Fabric deployment can benefit from the Z9100 ON switch as a leaf or spin switch. The switch is also ideal for use with SDN / OpenFlow 1.3.1 with high performance because it is compatible with the standard OpenFlow controllers. The Z9100-ON can be used as a high-speed VXLAN Layer 2 gateway that connects hypervisor-based overlay networks to non-virtualized infrastructure.

Dell EMC Networking Z9100-ON Specifications

AC Base Normal Airflow:

• 32-port 100G QSFP28, 2 AC PS, 5 fan subsys w/ airflow from I/O PNL to PS

AC Base Reverse Airflow:

• 32-port 100G QSFP28, 2 AC PS, 5 fan subsys w/ airflow from PS to I/O PNL (TAA versions also available)

Software

• L3 Dell Networking OS
• Z9100 series: Dell Networking Software License operating system software license for advanced l3 features, latest version
• Dell Networking OS
• Z9100 series: Dell Networking Software License operating system software license, latest version
• Select third-party operating system offerings

Physical

• 1 RJ45 console/management port with RS232 signaling
• 1 10/100/1000bT Ethernet for management
• 1 USB 2.0 type A storage port
• 1 micro USB type B port for console/management port access
• 2 SFP+ 10GbE/1GbE ports for data access
• Size: 1 RU, 1.72”h x 17.1”w x 18”d
• Weight: 22 lbs (9.98 kg)
• ReadyRails rack mounting system, no tools required

Redundancy

• Two hot swappable power supplies with integrated fans
• Hot swappable redundant fans

Performance

• Switching I/O bandwidth: 6.4Tbps
• Forwarding capacity: Up to 4400 Mpps (Full Duplex)
• MAC addresses: 136K
• IPv4 Unicast routes: 136K
• IPv6 Unicast routes: 68K
• IPv4 Multicast routes: 68K
• IPv6 Multicast routes: Not supported
• Multicast Hosts: 8K
• ARP entries: 128K
• Layer 2 VLANs: 4K per port
• Layer 3 VLANs: Standalone 1K/VLT 4K
• MST: 64 instances
• PVST+: 128 instances
• LAG: 128 groups, 16 members per LAG group
• LAG load balancing:
• Based on layer 2, IPv4 or IPv6 headers
• Latency: Sub 500ns
• Packet buffer memory: 16MB
• CPU memory: 8GB
• QOS data queues: 8
• QOS control queues: 12
• QOS: Default 1024 entries scalable to 2.5K
• ACL Support: 3K
• Power supply: 100–240 VAC 50/60 Hz
• Max. power consumption: 605 Watts
• Typ. power consumption: 195 Watts

Build and Design

The Dell EMC Networking Z9100-ON Z-Series switch is a 1U form factor and, like many Dell EMC switches, it also comes with the Dell ReadyRails system without tools for easy deployment. Along the front of the switch, going from left to right, there is a microUSB-B port, a RJ45 serial console port, a 10/100 / 1000BaseT Ethernet management port, 32 10/25/40 ports / 50/100 QSFP28, two SFP + ports of 1000M / 10G, a battery ID and a USB-A port.

Turning the back of the switch, there are two redundant power supplies on each side with five hot-swappable fan modules in the middle. The switch admits the inversion of the air flow, with the current configuration shown supporting the drawing in cold air from the rear part of the chassis. To change, interchange both power supplies and all five fans with matching airflow directions.

The static rails that Dell offers with the Z9100 switch are very nice. They fit quickly with the receiving rails without tools installed in the frame, and have a very useful hinged front flange that allows the switch to pass through narrow openings and clear wiring. This is much better than switches with fixed tabs that can hit a PDU or trap the wires that come out.

Management

One of the big advantages of the Z9100-ON switch is that it works with so many different network management operating systems. For our review, we use Dell OS 9.10, which has a traditional console as the main administration interface. This is not unusual for many enterprise-level switches, with various essentially handling their basic formations through CLI, even if they have a limited WebGUI. The main purpose for this is that implementation gets faster by simply loading scripts through a Telnet or SSH session.

During our configuration, we started with a local Dell engineer for the initial installation and then worked with Dell ProSupport for a few days to adjust our configuration and work well with our non-standard production environment. However, with most switching configurations, once things work, there's no reason to return to any sort of daily management unless something does not work.

Solutions

Within the larger Dell EMC ecosystem, the Z9100-ON Z-Series switch can be used for several different use cases. In vSAN, for example, the Z9100 can serve as a column switch in the vSAN blade switch architecture. This can lead users to create a simple and scalable network. Users can take advantage of the 40 GbE connection to connect multiple racks and build a large fabric that supports multiple terabyte clusters.

With NSX, again two Z9100-ON Z-Series Switches can be used as spine switches in leaf-thorn topology. The leaf switches will connect to the Z9100-ON with the traffic between the two taking advantage of the same cost multiple route routing (ECMP), using all the available bandwidth. The Z9100-ON can accept up to 32 leaf switches.

The above also applies to a ScaleIO spine design, with the Z9100-ON that allows ample space to climb. If there is no need for redundancy, the customer can choose to use only a Z9100-ON as a leaf switch.

StorageReview Lab Use

At StorageReview Lab, we leverage a set of Dell EMC Networking Z9100 dual for the primary backbone of our data center. This update was carried out last year, where the main driver was to increase server-to-server bandwidth for faster vMotion times, in addition to faster Ethernet movement. As part of this update, we exchanged our two-port 10G network cards on each server for 25G Mellanox NIC dual-port cards. Each of our Dell PowerEdge R730 and R740xd servers has a connection to each switch, with traffic balanced on each for our test purposes.

The migration to 25/50 / 100G networks for StorageReview could not have happened at a better time. With the release of the VMware3 standard from VMware last year, we have been taking advantage of the fastest network speeds for our shipments. With faster network movements working toward the final score, we can post higher infrastructure scores than others that still use 10G. In the real world this translates into smaller vMotion windows and offers more bandwidth to applications that can take advantage of it, using fewer cables.

Another additional benefit of a 100G network is the future protection of our storage fabric. With many new storage platforms that support 100G links to the array, this allows much higher throughput through fewer network links. It also allows individual servers to consume more bandwidth for burst activities.

Conclusion

The Z9100-ON was the first on the market with a 100GbE multi-rate dense switch, an achievement that is more than an edge advantage for the Dell EMC network division. Only occupying 1U of space, the change is about performance and connectivity. The Z9100-ON takes advantage of the non-blocking switching architecture and offers forwarding capability L2 and L3 along with QoS for best performance. The switch delivers up to 6.4Tbps of I / O bandwidth (in full duplex). In terms of connectivity, the Z9100 has 128 ports that can be configured as 32 100GbE ports, 64 50GbE ports, 32 40GbE ports, 128 25GbE ports or 128 10GbE ports and two 10GbE / 1GbE / 100MbE SFP + ports. This large number of ports, together with the configuration capacity, can help data centers consolidate or facilitate them in their migration path at higher network speeds.

The pair Z9100 in our lab is fundamental to the infrastructure. In a comparative assessment, the main objective is to emphasize the memory under review as much as possible. With the new structure of Dell Networking, we can offer the best network available. Nowhere is this more evident than in VMmark, where scores due to data migration (vMotion) are heavily dependent on network quality. Our approach to virtual virtualization testing with VMmark shows what true clusters really do in the real world. We're not targeting the number of inflated heroes like most server shipments. Instead, we illustrate what a typical environment would look like in a highly virtualized enterprise, where the Z9100 switches play a vital role in unlocking the potential of servers and storage.

The Bottom Line

The Z9100-ON switch series offers organizations the ability to consolidate networks, scale to larger clusters and prepare them for future network speeds. The Z9100 have been taken by the workhorses in our environment, offering both high performance and flexibility for a wide range of devices under test.