How many 10 GbE links can this switch carry in total?
Up to 36: the 28 native SFP+ ports, plus 8 links obtained by splitting the two 100 GbE QSFP28 ports with breakout cables. These ports also support 10, 25, 40 and 50 GbE, and the SFP+ ports also handle 1 GbE.
Does this switch lock you into its operating system?
No: thanks to ONIE, you can install Dell SmartFabric OS10 or a third-party network operating system. Hardware and software are decoupled, which lets you align this switch with the software stack already in place in the server room.
What happens if a power supply fails?
Service continues: two redundant AC power supplies, hot-swappable, at 100-240 V, and four fan modules that are also hot-swappable. Airflow runs from the I/O panel towards the power supplies.
What is the latency of this top-of-rack switch?
It operates in cut-through mode: a frame starts being forwarded before it has been fully received, which reduces latency compared with store-and-forward mode. The non-blocking fabric reaches 960 Gbps with a forwarding rate of 720 Mpps.
What table sizes can this switch handle?
272,000 MAC addresses in Scaled L2 mode, up to 200,000 IPv4 routes and 130,000 IPv6 routes, with a 200,000-entry ARP table, a 12 MB packet buffer and 4 GB of CPU memory.
Can this switch carry storage over IP?
Yes: Data Center Bridging is supported — Priority-based Flow Control PFC (802.1Qbb), ETS (802.1Qaz) and DCBX —, designed precisely to prevent packet loss on storage traffic sharing the data network.
Can a Layer 2 domain be extended between two rooms?
Yes, with VLT, which extends a Layer 2 domain between two data centres, and with the Layer 2 and Layer 3 VXLAN gateway, which bridges physical and virtualised networks at line rate. The stack also covers VLANs, OSPF, BGP, policy-based routing, QoS and ACLs.
How much rack space and power should be planned for?
43.1 cm wide, 45.7 cm deep and 4.3 cm high, weighing 8.92 kg: a deep 1U chassis, best kept for a server room rack. Allow 160 W in typical use and 260 W at most, from 0 to 40 °C.
Is the switch new and covered by a warranty?
Yes, new equipment, with a 3-year warranty, the invoice serving as the warranty document. This is the Dell EMC PowerSwitch S4128F-ON, a top-of-rack switch for server rooms and virtualised environments.