NOTICE: Before proceeding, read the release notes for this product. You can download the release notes from the Dell Support website, support.dell.com.
The Dell™ PowerConnect™ 6200 series are standalone or stackable Layer 2 and 3 switches that extend the Dell PowerConnect LAN switching product range. These switches include the following features:
1U form factor, rack-mountable chassis design.
Support for all data-communication requirements for a multi-layer switch, including layer 2 switching, IPv4 routing, IPv6 routing, IP multicast, quality of service, security, and system management features.
High availability with hot swappable subordinate switches.
Features
This section describes the switch's user-configurable features. For a list of all features, see the software version release notes.
Port-Based Features
Jumbo Frames Support
Jumbo frames enables transporting identical data in fewer frames to ensure less overhead, lower processing time, and fewer interrupts.
Auto-MDI/MDIX Support
Your switch supports auto-detection between crossed and straight-through cables.
Standard wiring for end stations is Media-Dependent Interface (MDI) and the standard wiring for hubs and switches is known as Media-Dependent Interface with Crossover (MDIX).
Auto negotiation allows the switch to advertise modes of operation. The auto negotiation function provides the means to exchange information between two switches that share a point-to-point link segment, and to automatically configure both switches to take maximum advantage of their transmission capabilities.
The PowerConnect 6200 series enhances auto negotiation by providing port advertisement. Port advertisement allows the system administrator to configure the port speeds advertised.
Flow control enables lower speed switches to communicate with higher speed switches by requesting that the higher speed switch refrains from sending packets. Transmissions are temporarily halted to prevent buffer overflows.
Head of Line (HOL) blocking prevention prevents traffic delays and frame loss caused by traffic competing for the same egress port resources. HOL blocking queues packets, and the packets at the head of the queue are forwarded before packets at the end of the queue.
Back Pressure Support
On half-duplex links, a receiver may prevent buffer overflows by occupying the link so that it is unavailable for additional traffic.
Alternate Store and Forward (ASF)
The Alternate Store and Forward (ASF) feature reduces latency for large packets. When ASF is enabled, the memory management unit (MMU) can forward a packet to the egress port before it has been entirely received on the Cell Buffer Pool (CBP) memory. AFS, which is also known as cut-through mode, is configurable through the command-line interface. For information about how to configure the AFS feature, see the CLI Reference Guide.
MAC Address Supported Features
MAC Address Support
The switch supports up to eight K MAC addresses and reserves two MAC addresses for system use.
Self-Learning MAC Addresses
The switch enables MAC addresses to be automatically learned from incoming packets.
Automatic Aging for MAC Addresses
MAC addresses that have not seen any traffic for a given period are aged out, which prevents the bridging table from overflowing.
For information about configuring the MAC Address age-out period, see "Dynamic Address Table."
Static MAC Entries
User-defined MAC entries are stored in the Bridging Table with the self-learned addresses.
For information about configuring the static MAC addresses, see "Static Address Table."
VLAN-Aware MAC-based Switching
Packets arriving from an unknown source address are sent to the CPU and added to the Hardware Table. Future packets addressed to or from this address are more efficiently forwarded.
MAC Multicast Support
Multicast service is a limited broadcast service that allows one-to-many and many-to-many connections. In Layer 2 multicast services, a single frame addressed to a specific multicast address is received, and copies of the frame to be transmitted on each relevant port are created.
IGMP Snooping examines the contents of IGMP frames when they are forwarded by the switch from stations to an upstream multicast router. Snooping enables the switch to identify stations interested in multicast sessions and which multicast routers are sending multicast frames.
Port Mirroring
Port mirroring monitors and mirrors network traffic by forwarding copies of incoming and outgoing packets from up to
four source ports to a monitoring port.
Broadcast Storm Control
When Layer 2 frames are forwarded, broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast frames are flooded to all ports on the relevant virtual local area network (VLAN). The flooding occupies bandwidth, and loads all nodes connected on all ports. Storm control limits the amount of broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast frames accepted and forwarded by the switch.
Virtual Local Area Network Supported Features
VLAN Support
VLANs are collections of switching ports that comprise a single broadcast domain. Packets are classified as belonging to a VLAN based on either the VLAN tag or a combination of the ingress port and packet contents. Packets sharing common attributes can be groups in the same VLAN.
VLAN classification rules are defined on data-link layer (Layer 2) protocol identification. Protocol-based VLANs are used for isolating Layer 2 traffic for differing Layer 3 protocols.
For information about defining Protocol-Based VLANs, see "Protocol Group."
Full 802.1Q VLAN Tagging Compliance
IEEE 802.1Q defines an architecture for virtual bridged LANs, the services provided in VLANs, and the protocols and algorithms involved in the provision of these services.
GVRP Support
GARP VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP) provides IEEE 802.1Q-compliant VLAN pruning and dynamic VLAN creation on 802.1Q trunk ports. When GVRP is enabled, the switch registers and propagates VLAN membership on all ports that are part of the active underlying Spanning Tree protocol topology.
For information about configuring GVRP, see "GVRP Parameters."
Protected Ports (Private VLAN Edge)
Private VLAN Edge (PVE) ports are a Layer 2 security feature that provides port-based security between ports that are members of the same VLAN. It is an extension of the common VLAN. Traffic from protected ports is sent only to the uplink ports and cannot be sent to other ports within the VLAN.
Subnet-based VLAN
This feature allows incoming untagged packets to be assigned to a VLAN and traffic class based on the source IP address of the packet.
This feature allows incoming untagged packets to be assigned to a VLAN and traffic class based on the source MAC address of the packet.
For information about configuring MAC-based VLANs, see "Bind MAC to VLAN."
Spanning Tree Protocol Features
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) per Switch
802.1d STP is a standard requirement of Layer 2 switches that allows bridges to automatically prevent and resolve L2 forwarding loops. Switches exchange configuration messages, using specifically formatted frames, and selectively forwarding on ports.
Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) detects and uses network topologies to enable faster convergence, without creating forwarding loops.
For information about configuring Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, see "Rapid Spanning Tree."
Multiple Spanning Tree
Multiple Spanning Tree (MSTP) operation maps VLANs to spanning tree instances. MSTP provides a differing load balancing scenario. Packets assigned to various VLANs are transmitted along different paths within MSTP Regions (MST Regions). Regions are one or more interconnected MSTP bridges with identical MSTP settings. The standard lets administrators assign VLAN traffic to unique paths.
For information about configuring Multiple Spanning Tree, see "MSTP Settings."
Spanning Tree Root Guard
Spanning Tree Root Guard is used to prevent the root of a Spanning Tree instance from changing unexpectedly. The priority of a Bridge ID can be set to zero but another Bridge ID with a lower mac address could also set its priority to zero and take over root.
Bridge Protocol Data Unit Guard
Spanning Tree BPDU Guard is used to disable the port in case a new device tries to enter the already existing topology of STP. Thus devices, which were originally not a part of STP, are not allowed to influence the STP topology.
Link Aggregation Features
Link Aggregation
Up to eight ports can combine to form a single Link Aggregated Group (LAG). This enables fault tolerance protection from physical link disruption, higher bandwidth connections and improved bandwidth granularity.
A LAG is composed of ports of the same speed, set to full-duplex operation.
Link Aggregate Control Protocol (LACP) uses peer exchanges across links to determine, on an ongoing basis, the aggregation capability of various links, and continuously provides the maximum level of aggregation capability achievable between a given pair of systems. LACP automatically determines, configures, binds, and monitors the binding of ports to aggregators within the system.
Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) for Media Endpoint Devices
The Link Layer Discovery Protocol for Media Endpoint Devices (LLDP-MED) provides an extension to the LLDP standard for network configuration and policy, device location, Power over Ethernet management, and inventory management.
The Voice VLAN feature enables switch ports to carry voice traffic with defined priority. The priority level enables the separation of voice and data traffic coming onto the port.
The PowerConnect 6200 uses the ARP protocol to associate a layer 2 MAC address with a layer 3 IPv4 address. Additionally, the administrator can statically add entries in to the ARP table.
Open Shortest Path First
The OSPF Routing protocol defines two area types: regular OSPF area and OSPF stub area. OSPF internal and external route information may be propagated throughout the regular OSPF area; it is capable of supporting transit traffic and virtual links. OSPF stub areas do not receive external route information; the motivation to configure stub areas is to limit the size of the area database for those routers that have limited resources.
BOOTP/DHCP Relay Agent
The BootP protocol allows a device to solicit and receive configuration data and parameters from a
suitable server. DHCP is an extension to BootP allowing additional setup parameters to be received
from a network server upon system startup. Notably, while BootP stops operating once an IP
address is obtained, DHCP service is an on-going process. For example, the IP address assigned to
the system has a `lease time' that may expire, and can be renewed on the fly.
Routing Information Protocol
The routing protocol used within an autonomous Internet system is referred to as an interior gateway protocol (IGP). RIP is an IGP that is designed to work with moderate-size networks.
Virtual Routing Redundancy Protocol
Virtual Routing Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is used to provide hosts with redundant routers in the network topology without any need for the hosts to reconfigure or know that there are multiple routers.
IPv6 Routing Features
DHCPv6
DHCPv6 incorporates the notion of the "stateless" server, where DHCPv6 is not used for IP address assignment to a client, rather it only provides other networking information such as DNS, Network Time Protocol (NTP), and/or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) information.
OSPFv3
OSPFv3 provides a routing protocol for IPv6 networking. OSPFv3 is a new routing component based on the OSPF version 2 component. In dual stack IPv6, you can configure and use both OSPF and OSPFv3 components.
IPv6 Routes
Since IP4 and IPV6 can coexist on a network, the router on such a network needs to forward both traffic types. Given this coexistence, the PowerConnect 6200 maintains two routing tables, rto and rto6, which are both capable of forwarding over the same set of interfaces. IPV6 interfaces are managed in a manner similar to IPV4 interfaces.
Quality of Service Features
Quality of Service (QoS) Support
To overcome unpredictable network traffic and optimize performance, you can apply Quality of Service (QoS) throughout the network to ensure that network traffic is prioritized according to specific criteria. Your switch supports two types of QoS: Differentiated Services and Class of Service.
Differentiated Services
The QoS feature contains Differentiated Services (DiffServ) support that allows traffic to be classified into streams and given certain QoS treatment in accordance with defined per-hop behaviors.
Class Of Service
The Class of Service (CoS) queueing feature lets you directly configure certain aspects of switch queuing. This provides the desired QoS behavior for different types of network traffic when the complexities of DiffServ are not required.
IPv4 Multicast Features
Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
DVMRP exchanges probe packets with all DVMRP-enabled routers, establishing two way neighboring relationships and building a neighbor table. It exchanges report packets and creates a unicast topology table, which is used to build the multicast routing table. This multicast route table is then used to route the multicast packets.
Internet Group Management Protocol
The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is used by IPv4 systems (hosts and routers) to report their IP multicast group memberships to any neighboring multicast routers. The PowerConnect 6200 performs the "multicast router part" of the IGMP protocol, which means it collects the membership information needed by the active multicast routing.
Protocol Independent Multicast-Dense Mode
Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) is a standard multicast routing protocol that provides scalable inter-domain multicast routing across the Internet, independent of the mechanisms provided by any particular unicast routing protocol. PIM-DM protocol uses an existing Unicast routing table and a Join/Prune/Graft mechanism to build a tree. PIM-DM creates source-based shortest-path distribution trees, making use of reverse path forwarding (RPF).
Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode
PIM-SM is used to efficiently route multicast traffic to multicast groups that may span wide area networks, and where bandwidth is a constraint. PIM-SM uses shared trees by default and implements source-based trees for efficiency. This data threshold rate is used to toggle between trees.
Switch Management Features
SNMP Alarms and Trap Logs
The system logs events with severity codes and timestamps. The events are sent as SNMP traps to a trap recipient list.
You can manage the system from any web browser. The switch contains an embedded web server that serves HTML pages that you can use to monitor and configure the system.
Configuration File Download
The switch's configuration file includes both system-wide and port-specific device configuration data. You can display configuration files through command-line interface (CLI) commands.
For information about downloading configuration files, see "Downloading Files."
Software Download
Software download enables storage of backup firmware images. For information about downloading the software, see "Software Download and Reboot."
Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)
PowerConnect 6200 series supports boot image, firmware, and configuration upload/download through TFTP.
Remote Monitoring (RMON)
RMON is a standard MIB that defines current and historical MAC-layer statistics and control objects, allowing real-time information to be captured across the entire network.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Versions 1, 2, and 3
The system is fully manageable using a combination of Management Information Base (MIB) variables, whose combined values represent all facets of the system state, and the SNMP protocol to examine and possibly modify these values. SNMP v1/v2c/v3 over the UDP/IP transport protocol is supported.
Command Line Interface
Command Line Interface (CLI) syntax and semantics conform as much as possible to common industry practice. CLI is composed of mandatory and optional elements. Context-sensitive help provides format and value ranges allowed for current commands, and the CLI interpreter provides command and keyword completion.
Syslog
Syslog is a protocol that allows event notifications to be sent to a set of desired remote servers where they can be stored, examined, and acted upon.
The Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) assures accurate network switch clock time synchronization up to the millisecond. Time synchronization is performed by a network SNTP server.
Access Control Lists (ACLs) ensure that only authorized users have access to specific resources while blocking off any unwarranted attempts to reach network resources. ACLs are used to provide traffic flow control, restrict contents of routing updates, decide which types of traffic are forwarded or blocked, and above all provide security for the network.
Port based authentication enables authenticating system users on a per port basis through an external server. Only authenticated and approved system users can transmit and receive data. Ports are authenticated through the Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server using the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). Also supported are PEAP, EAP-TTL, EAP-TTLS, and EAP-TLS.
Locked Port Support
The locked port feature limits access on a port to users with specific MAC addresses. These addresses are manually defined or learned on that port. When a frame is seen on a locked port, and the frame source MAC address is not tied to that port, the protection mechanism is invoked.
For information about enabling locked port security, see"Port Security."
Password Management Security
Password management provides increased network security and improved password control. Passwords for SSH, Telnet, HTTP, HTTPS, and SNMP access are assigned security features.
TACACS+ provides centralized security for validation of users accessing the switch. TACACS+ provides a centralized user management system, while still retaining consistency with RADIUS and other authentication processes.
RADIUS Client
RADIUS is a client/server-based protocol in which the server maintains a user database that contains per-user authentication information, such as user name, password, and accounting information.
SSH/SSL
Secure Shell (SSH) is a protocol that provides a secure, remote connection to a device. This connection provides functionality that is similar to an inbound telnet connection.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol provides a means of abstracting an encrypted connection between two stations. Once established, such a connection is virtually no different to use than an unsecured connection.
CLI Documentation
Another resource for the Dell PowerConnect 6200 series is the CLI Reference Guide. It provides information about the CLI commands used to configure and manage the switch and stack. The document provides in-depth CLI descriptions, syntax, default values, and examples.
