EMEA DEF HOL Labs – Get Hands-on Experience with Dell Networking, Servers, and Storage

EMEA Dell Enterprise Forum (DEF) kicked off this week in Frankfurt, Germany. Great venue with tons of information and training for Dell customers and partners. Make sure to stop by the Hands-on labs in the Skyloft. I will be there for Dell Networking along with other experts from Servers and Storage. Some of the labs for Dell Networking in-particular include:

Dell S5000, Dell MXL, Dell PowerEdge Rack Server, Dell PowerEdge Blade Server, Dell PowerVault FC Storage Array:

– configuration and deployment of a converged network with the Dell S5000 converged switch via FCoE. Get hands-on experience with the Dell S5000 switch, Dell PowerEdge rack server, and Dell PowerVault FC storage array. There’s also a variation of the lab that utilizes a Dell M1000e chassis and a PowerEdge blade server instead of a PowerEdge rack server. This allows you to get additional experience configuring a Dell MXL blade switch as a FIP-snooping Bridge (FSB) / FCoE Transit switch.

Dell MXL with FC Flex IO Module, Dell PowerEdge Blade Server, Brocade FC Switch, Dell Compellent FC Storage Array:

– configuration and deployment of a converged network via FCoE with the Dell MXL blade switch with FC Flex IO Module. The 4-port FC Flex IO Module transforms the Dell MXL/IOA blade switch into a NPIV Proxy Gateway providing FC ports on the MXL/IOA blade switch and allowing it to bridge between FCoE and FC. Get hands-on experience with the Dell MXL blade switch with FC Flex IOM, Dell PowerEdge blade server, Brocade FC switch, and Dell Compellent FC storage array.

Dell S6000:

– configuration of VRF-lite on Dell S6000 providing for a mulit-tenant network via multiple instances of routing tables.

Dell N-Series N3048P, N3024P, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

– configuration of Multi-chassis Link Aggregation (MLAG) on Dell N-Series switches. MLAG allows for Active/Active loop-free redundancy without the use of spanning tree protocol (STP) which would have the negative effect of blocked ports and wasted bandwidth.

Dell Active Fabric Manager (AFM):

– hands-on experience with Dell Active Fabric Manager (AFM) designing a network fabric and preparing for automated deployment which can reduce total fabric deployment time by up to 86%.