I am currently building out a Dell m1000e blade chassis for a new datacenter build and ran across a problem that was far more difficult than necessary due to a lack of decent documentation.  One of the fabrics in the blade enclosure contains Dell M8024-k 10Gb/s PowerConnect switches.  These switches had a recent firmware release that enabled stacking functionality similar to what is capable with Cisco 3750 switches, but instead of using a special stacking cable, these switches will stack with any number of standard 10Gb/s ethernet connections.  This was ideal for our situation as the upstream equipment we are connecting to is a pair of Nexus 5548s and we were particularly interested in using vPC for the connectivity to the chassis.  After multiple failed attempts, and several conversations with Dell engineers, I have found the correct process for configuring these switches for stacking.Continue reading