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Dell Force10 Operating System
Hardened performance for real-world networks

Dell Force10 S55 high-performance 1/10GbE switch

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Dell Force10 Operating System
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Overview:

Optimized for portability, resiliency and scalability

Dell FTOS, the Force10 Operating System, is a powerful and robust operating system that runs on the Dell Force10 switch/router product lines. It is architected for high performance, resiliency, and portability. The Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) makes FTOS applications portable across product lines. Its modular design dramatically increases code reuse and accelerates the delivery of applications. FTOS is based on NetBSD, with application code developed and maintained by Force10.

Key features

  • Out-of-the-box stability, resiliency, performance, and security advantages
  • Increased software portability and modularity to bring high performance application features to all switch/router product lines
  • Based on NetBSD, an industry’s leading, freely available open source operating system. NetBSD is highly reliable, portable and efficient

FTOS: The power of one

Rich functional coverage

The primary FTOS attributes, modularity and extensibility, allows an accelerated evolution in different domains, including Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, as well as management functions, security services and other FTOS features.

Dell Force10 S55 high-performance 1/10GbE switch
FTOS Software Architecture

FTOS leverages a distributed, multiprocessor architecture that delivers highly scalable protocols and reliability in each product line. Z-Series and E-Series Route Processor Modules (RPMs) are designed with separate control plane CPUs for Layer 2, Layer 3 and management functions, with distributed processing on line card CPUs. The C-Series RPMs and S-Series switch/routers use one control plane CPU, with distributed processing on C-Series line cards and S-Series stack members.

The NetBSD kernel provides a stable operating system and unparallel resource management thanks to its renowned Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) architecture. Highly optimized it provides superior levels of concurrency, memory allocation, and process scheduling. All other applications run as independent and modular processes in their own protected memory space.

Consistency

Dell Force10’s switch/route platforms derive from a single code base which follows a linear, sequential release path. It allows the Z-Series, E-Series, C-Series, and S-Series to deliver uniform solution sets. Dell Force10 ensures that customers benefit from stable code, consistent configuration environment, and simpler software management. FTOS reliability and scalability characteristics provide the foundation for always-on networks and deliver substantial reliability and scalability advantages.

Flexibility and faster time-to-market

The trend towards increased service innovation requires decreased time-to-market. FTOS modular architecture allows for further expansion of enhanced applications to meet current and future key propositions, and thus, achieving further operational efficiencies.

Stable code

  • The drive and benefits of a single code base and a single release train enables Dell Force10 to perform more robust and comprehensive rigorous functionality and scalability testing
  • Customers benefit from more stable, reliable software and consistent CLI
  • All platforms can benefit from a single maintenance release, which greatly simplifies software maintenance

Scalable protocols

  • FTOS control plane inherits a high degree of maturity and stabilityfrom its roots in NetBSD’s high performance IPv4 and IPv6 stacks
  • Advanced inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms enable a scalable and distributed control plane
  • Switching and routing protocols have been extensively tested and hardened through deployment in large global networks
  • FTOS can accommodate the most demanding environments, reliably scaling to support very large, high performance networks

Streamlined Management

  • Common management functionality and common user interface across Dell Force10 product lines make operating the network easier
  • Simpler product training and learning curve because system configuration, diagnostics, troubleshooting and software maintenance are identical across platforms
  • Support for the same CLI, SNMP, and XML management models throughout the network greatly simplifies life-cycle management of the infrastructure Consistent functionality, a stable code base and a common management interface and tool set all help reduce operational expenses (OPEX), thus lowering total cost of ownership (TCO).By supporting FTOS across all its switch/router products, Force10 extends the reliability and scalability benefits to all tiers of the network for optimal uptime.

Dell FTOS Command Line Interface (CLI)

The CLI is a primary method of administering, configuring, and monitoring FTOS applications and Dell Force10 switches/routers. The CLI is a significant asset in protecting training investments: It is fully compliant with the predominant, de-facto industry standard CLI. Certified engineers will be immediately familiar with the Dell Force10 CLI and productive from day one.

The CLI has many powerful features which make it very convenient for usage on a daily basis. It includes on-line help, auto-completion, plain text or XML front-ends, Unix-like tools, such as grep, and non-interactive mode for scripting, to mention some.

Specifications:

Dell FTOS Specifications

IEEE Compliance

802.1AB LLDP
802.1ad Q-in-Q
802.1ag Connectivity Fault Management
802.1D Bridging, STP
802.1p L2 Prioritization
802.1Q VLAN Tagging, Double VLAN Tagging, GVRP
802.1s MSTP
802.1w RSTP
802.1X Network Access Control
802.3ab Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-T)
802.3ac Frame Extensions for VLAN Tagging
802.3ad Link Aggregation with LACP
802.3ae 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-X)
802.3af Power over Ethernet
802.3ak 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-CX4)
802.3ba 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GBase-X) on optical ports
802.3ba 100 Gigabit Ethernet on optical ports 100
GBase-LR4/-SR4
802.3i Ethernet (10BASE-T)
802.3u Fast Ethernet (100BASE-TX)
802.3x Flow Control
802.3z Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-X) ANSI/TIA-1057 LLDP-MED
Force10 FRRP (Force10 Redundant Ring Protocol) Force10 PVST+

RFC and I-D Compliance

General Internet Protocols

768 UDP
793 TCP
854 Telnet
959 FTP
1321 MD5
1350 TFTP
1661 PPP
1989 PPP Link Quality Monitoring
1990 PPP Multilink Protocol
1994 PPP CHAP
2474 Differentiated Services
2615 PPP over SONET/SDH
2698 Two Rate Three Color Marker
3164 Syslog
4254 SSHv2
draft-ietf-bfd-base-03 BFD

General IPv4 Protocols

791 IPv4
792 ICMP
826 ARP
1027 Proxy ARP
1035 DNS (client)
1042 Ethernet Transmission
1191 Path MTU Discovery
1305 NTPv3
1519 CIDR
1542 BOOTP (relay)
1812 Routers
1858 IP Fragment Filtering
2131 DHCP (server and relay)
2338 VRRP
3021 31-bit Prefixes
3046 DHCP Option 82
3069 Private VLAN
3128 Tiny Fragment Attack Protection

General IPv6 Protocols

1981 Path MTU Discovery (partial)
2460 IPv6
2461 Neighbor Discovery (partial)
2462 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (partial)
2463 ICMPv6
2464 Ethernet Transmission
2675 Jumbograms
3587 Global Unicast Address Format
4291 Addressing
4443 ICMPv6
5798 VRRPv3 for IPv6

IPv6 Routing Protocols

2080 RIPng
2545 BGP-4 extensions for IPv6
5308 IS-IS for IPv6
5340 OSPFv3
4601 PIM-SM for IPv4/IPv6

RIP

1058 RIPv1
2453 RIPv2

OSPF

1587 NSSA
1745 OSPF/BGP interaction
1765 OSPF Database overflow
2154 MD5
2328 OSPFv2
2370 Opaque LSA
2740 OSPFv3
3101 OSPF NSSA
3623 Graceful Restart
4222 Prioritization and Congestion Avoidance
OSPF Link-State Advertisement (LSA) Throttling

IS-IS

1142 IS-IS
1195 IPv4 Routing
2763 Dynamic Hostname
2966 Domain-wide Prefixes
3373 Three-way Handshake
3567 MD5
3784 Wide Metrics
5120 Multi-topology
5301 Dynamic Hostname Exchange.
5302 Dynamic Wide Prefixes
5303 Three-way Handshake
5304 MD5
5305 TE Extensions to ISIS
5306 Restart Signaling for IS-IS
draft-ietf-isis-igp-p2p-over-lan-06 Point-to-Point Operation
draft-ietf-isis-ipv6-06 IPv6 Routing
draft-kaplan-isis-ext-eth-02 Extended Frame Size

BGP

1997 Communities
2385 MD5
2439 Route Flap Damping
2545 Multiprotocol Extensions for IPv6
2796 Route Reflection
2842 Capabilities
2858 Multiprotocol Extensions
2918 Route Refresh
3065 Confederations
4271 BGP-4
4360 Extended Communities
4893 4-byte ASN
4724 BGP Graceful Restart
4760 Multiprotocol Extensions
5396 4-byte ASN Representation
5492 Capabilities Advertisement
draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-20 BGPv4
draft-ietf-idr-restart-06 Graceful Restart
draft-michaelson-4byte-as-representation-05
4-byte ASN Representation (partial)

Multicast

1112 IGMPv1
2236 IGMPv2
2710 MLDv1
3376 IGMPv3
3569 SSM for IPv4/IPv6
3618 MSDP
3810 MLDv2
3973 PIM-DM
4541 IGMPv1/v2/v3, MLDv1 Snooping, MLDv2
Snooping
draft-ietf-pim-sm-v2-new-05 PIM-SM for IPv4/IPv6

MPLS

2702 Requirements for TE Over MPLS
3031 MPLS Architecture
3032 MPLS Label Stack Encoding
3209 RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP Tunnels
3630 TE Extensions to OSPF Version 2
3784 IS-IS Extensions for TE
3812 MPLS-TE MIB
3813 MPLS LSR MIB
4090 Fast Reroute Extensions to RSVP-TE for LSP Tunnels
4379 Detecting MPLS Data Plane Failures (TE/LDP)
Ping & Traceroute
5036 LDP Specification
5063 Extensions to GMPLS RSVP Graceful Restart

Network Management

1155 SMIv1
1156 Internet MIB
1157 SNMPv1
1212 Concise MIB Definitions
1215 SNMP Traps
1493 Bridges MIB
1657 BGP-4
1724 RIPv2 MIB
1850 OSPFv2 MIB
1901 Community-based SNMPv2
1905 SNMPv2
1907 SNMP MIB
2011 IP MIB
2012 TCP MIB
2013 UDP MIB
2024 DLSw MIB
2096 IP Forwarding Table MIB
2233 Interfaces MIB
2558 SONET/SDH MIB
2570 SNMPv3
2571 Management Frameworks
2572 Message Processing and Dispatching
2574 SNMPv3 USM
2575 SNMPv3 VACM
2576 Coexistence Between SNMPv1/v2/v3
2578 SMIv2
2579 Textual Conventions for SMIv2
2580 Conformance Statements for SMIv2
2618 RADIUS Authentication MIB
2665 Ethernet-like Interfaces MIB
2674 Extended Bridge MIB
2787 VRRP MIB
2819 RMON MIB (groups 1, 2, 3, 9)
2863 Interfaces MIB
2865 RADIUS
2933 IGMP MIB
3273 RMON High Capacity MIB
3416 SNMPv2
3418 SNMP MIB
3434 RMON High Capacity Alarm MIB
3580 802.1X with RADIUS
3815 LDP MIB
4292 IPv6 Forwarding Table MIB
4293 IPv6 MIB
5060 PIM MIB
ANSI/TIA-1057 LLDP-MED MIB
draft-grant-tacacs-02 TACACS+
draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-mib-06 BGP MIBv1
draft-ietf-isis-wg-mib-16 IS-IS MIB
IEEE 802.1AB LLDP MIB
IEEE 802.1AB LLDP DOT1 MIB
IEEE 802.1AB LLDP DOT3 MIB
IPv4 Multicast MIB
ISIS MIB
ruzin-mstp-mib-02 MSTP MIB (traps)
sFlow.org sFlowv5
sFlow.org sFlowv5 MIB (version 1.3)

MIBs

FORCE10-BGP4-V2-MIB
FORCE10-CHASSIS-MIB
FORCE10-COPY-CONFIG-MIB
FORCE10-CS-CHASSIS-MIB
FORCE10-FIB-MIB
FORCE10-FORWARDINGPLANE-STATS-MIB
FORCE10-IF-EXTENSION-MIB
FORCE10-LINKAGG-MIB
FORCE10-MON-MIB
FORCE10-PRODUCTS-MIB
FORCE10-SMI
FORCE10-SS-CHASSIS-MIB
FORCE10-SYSTEM-COMPONENT-MIB
FORCE10-TC-MIB
FORCE10-TRAP-ALARM-MIB

Management and Security

HP OpenView support
Industry-standard CLI
Interface access control
Layer 2 and 3 ACLs
NTPv3
Port mirroring
Port monitoring
RADIUS/TACACS+ authentication
RMON (groups 1, 2, 3, 9)
Secure copy (scp)
sFlow traffic accounting
SNMPv1/v2/v3
XML configuration and command output

Automation

Hyperlink
JumpStart
SmartScripts
SwitchLink

Quality of Service and Rate Policing

Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ)

Virtualization

VRF-Lite

Other

ACL-based accounting
Destination-based MAC accounting
DNS Client
Ping & Traceroute

Documentation:

Download the Dell Force10 Operating System (FTOS) Spec Sheet (PDF).

Pricing Notes:

Dell Force10 Products
Dell Force10 Operating System
Dell Force10 Operating System
Call for Pricing!