Midplane; Figure 29. Midplane - Dell PowerEdge M1000e Technical Manual

Technical guide

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7 Midplane

Though hidden from view in an actively running system, the midplane is the focal point for all

connectivity within the M1000e Modular System. The midplane is a large printed circuit board

providing power distribution, fabric connectivity, and system management infrastructure.

Additionally it allows airflow paths for the front-to-back cooling system through ventilation holes.

As is requisite for fault-tolerant systems, the M1000e midplane is completely passive, with no hidden

stacking midplanes or interposers with active components. I/O fabrics and system management are

fully redundant from each hot pluggable item. The system management Ethernet fabric is fully

redundant when two CMCs are installed, with two point-to-point connections from each server

module.

The midplane serves as transport for a patent-pending, time-division–multiplexed serial bus for

general purpose I/O reduction. This serial bus contributes greatly to the midplane's I/O lane count

reduction, which is typically burdened with a significant I/O pin and routing channel count of largely

static or low-speed functions. For instance, all Fibre Channel I/O Passthrough module LED and SFP

status information is carried over this bus, which alone eliminates over one hundred point-to-point

connections that would otherwise be required. The time division multiplexed serial bus is fully

redundant, with health monitoring, separate links per CMC and error checking across all data.

PowerEdge M1000e Technical Guide

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