I have a combination of the above Dell N-Series along with some Ciena and Extreme equipment and there have been some issues with configuration. Connecting either of the above N-Series to the Ciena and Extreme gear using SFP 1000Base-SX Dell Qualified optics in the SFP+ ports requires me to disable auto-negotiation and set the interface to "speed 1000". If I do not I get an error message such as:
<187> Sep 11 04:13:57 192.133.105.217-1 NIM[nim_t]: nim_events.c(1403) 1237 %% Te1/0/6: Capability not supported or mismatched with configuration. Please check hardware and try again!
Even more disconcerting is that when this happens on the 4032F model the unit wedges and is completely unresponsive even on the serial console port. I must remove the optic from the port and power-cycle to get things going again.
However, until this morning I was, without issue, able to use auto-negotiation between the 4032F SFP+ ports with SFP 1000Base-SX optics and the same optics in the 3048P SFP+ port. However, after upgrading the 4032F and rebooting the 4032F wedged again and noted the offending port as a 3048P that, until this point, had been auto-negotiating as noted (the 3048P was, at the time, still running 6.2.1.6).
After a close reading of both the User Guide and the CLI Guide (both Version 6.2.5.0 and Later) I note the following:
User Guide
p.117 (referring to the 3000 series): SFP transceivers are supported in SFP+ ports and operate at 1G full-duplex. SFP transceivers require auto-negotiation to be enabled.
p.129 (referring to the 4000 series): Auto-negotiation should be disabled for Dell Networking N4000 Series SFP+ ports and enabled for SFP+ ports with SFP transceivers installed.
CLI Guide
p.405:
Fiber ports do not support auto-negotiation and therefore require the operator to enter the speed command with the desired operating bandwidth. [...] 1G fiber ports optionally support auto-negotiation. Both ends of fiber connections must be set to the same speed and auto-negotiation setting.
So, in short the CLI guide says both it's not supported and it's optional (at least for 1Gb fiber ports) where as the User Guide says it's required on the 3000 and should be enabled on the 4000.
Given the issues with the 4032F wedging with other mfrs gear and wedging this a.m. on reboot on a port connect to the same on a 3048P I'm seriously considering just configuring all SFP+ ports with the SFP 1000Base-SX Dell optics as "speed 1000" as that seems to resolve the problem but is certainly at odds with most of the documentation.
Guidance is surely appreciated.