Managing Converged Network Adapters on PowerEdge Servers

The expanded feature set and capabilities of Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) have been taking the networking world by storm in recent years. Dell PowerEdge servers are perfectly suited to leverage the full potential of CNAs thanks to the Dell iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller that provides extensive manageability of these controllers both from a 1:1 perspective as well as remotely, allowing configuration and maintenance of hundreds of servers in parallel.

We recently published a whitepaper introducing the various capabilities of these CNAs. You will find descriptions of the following primary capabilities:

1. Traditional Network Interface Controller (NIC) capabilities
2. Internet Small Computer System Interface over Ethernet (iSCSI) capabilities
3. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities

You will further be introduced to various concepts that help understand how these capabilities can be configured to best meet the needs of the modern data center:

1. Personalities
2. Bandwidth partitioning
3. Boot versus Offload
4. I/O Identity 

You will also find common workflow scenarios to obtain inventory as well as to configure the CNAs remotely using the Dell Lifecycle Controller API exposed by the iDRAC7:

1. Inventory
2. Partitioning enablement
3. Personality enablement
4. Bandwidth allocation
5. I/O Identity

 iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller Technical Learning Series.