Which Dell PowerStore network uses an appliance backplane?

The inter-node network provides the internal, high-speed communication path between the two nodes within a single PowerStore appliance. This private, non-routable network is physically established across the appliance's backplane (or midplane). It is essential for critical functions such as cache mirroring, metadata synchronization, and high-availability operations. The backplane provides the dedicated 100 GbE connectivity that ensures the low latency and high bandwidth required for these intra-appliance processes, forming the core of the system's clustered architecture.

A. ICD (Inter-Cluster Data) network uses front-end Ethernet ports for replication traffic between different, geographically separate PowerStore clusters.
B. MPIO (Multipath I/O) is a host-level software technology for managing redundant paths to storage, not an internal appliance network.
D. Inter-cluster management uses the external management network ports to connect multiple PowerStore clusters for centralized administration.

1. Dell Technologies. (2023). Dell PowerStore: Networking Guide. Page 8, Section "System bond". The document states, "The system bond is an internal bond that is created on the 100 GbE ports that connect to the appliance midplane. This bond is used for internode communication between the two nodes of the appliance."

2. Dell Technologies. (2023). Dell PowerStore: Introduction to the Platform White Paper. Page 11, Figure 5. The document illustrates the appliance architecture, showing the two nodes connected via a midplane and states, "The two nodes within an appliance are connected through a 100 GbE non-routable private network. This network is used for communication between the nodes for read and write cache mirroring, and other internode operations."

3. Dell Technologies. (2022). Dell PowerStore: High Availability White Paper. Page 6, Section "Hardware Redundancy". This paper describes the dual-active node architecture and mentions, "The nodes are connected through a midplane which provides a high-speed, low-latency path for internode communication."