Cisco Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Weißbuch
© 2016 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public information.
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Cisco UCS Unified Fabric
January 2016
of connectivity between one of the chassis’ two fabrics and one of the fabric
interconnects. With a pair of these devices supporting two fabrics, 320 Gbps
of connectivity can be established to each chassis. To preserve any existing
investment, the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects support the
preceding generation of 10-Gbps fabric extenders: the Cisco UCS 2204XP
(up to 80 Gbps per chassis) and 2208 (up to 160 Gbps per chassis) Fabric
Extenders. This support allows you to upgrade your fabric interconnects and your
blade server chassis as your connectivity demands require.
interconnects. With a pair of these devices supporting two fabrics, 320 Gbps
of connectivity can be established to each chassis. To preserve any existing
investment, the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects support the
preceding generation of 10-Gbps fabric extenders: the Cisco UCS 2204XP
(up to 80 Gbps per chassis) and 2208 (up to 160 Gbps per chassis) Fabric
Extenders. This support allows you to upgrade your fabric interconnects and your
blade server chassis as your connectivity demands require.
•
Top-of-rack fabric extenders: Cisco Nexus fabric extenders bring the unified
fabric to the top of every rack, supporting greater scale through oversubscription.
For applications requiring dedicated 40-Gbps connectivity, Cisco UCS C-Series
Rack Servers can be connected directly to the fabric interconnects; otherwise,
you can use the fabric extenders to integrate more servers into the system.
To bring the 40-Gbps fabric to the top of the rack, the Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ
40GE Fabric Extender connects up to six 40 Gigabit Ethernet links to the fabric
interconnects and supports 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections downstream
to rack servers. The Cisco UCS 6300 Series also can support existing Cisco
Nexus 2232PP 10GE Fabric Extenders but with multiple 10 Gigabit Ethernet links
between the fabric extenders and the fabric interconnects.
fabric to the top of every rack, supporting greater scale through oversubscription.
For applications requiring dedicated 40-Gbps connectivity, Cisco UCS C-Series
Rack Servers can be connected directly to the fabric interconnects; otherwise,
you can use the fabric extenders to integrate more servers into the system.
To bring the 40-Gbps fabric to the top of the rack, the Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ
40GE Fabric Extender connects up to six 40 Gigabit Ethernet links to the fabric
interconnects and supports 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections downstream
to rack servers. The Cisco UCS 6300 Series also can support existing Cisco
Nexus 2232PP 10GE Fabric Extenders but with multiple 10 Gigabit Ethernet links
between the fabric extenders and the fabric interconnects.
•
Cisco UCS VIC 1300 platform: The unified fabric terminates with Cisco or
third-party CNAs. The most popular form of CNA is a Cisco VIC, which supports
more than 256 (more or less, depending on the model) PCIe-compliant devices
that can be created on demand through Cisco UCS Manager. Applications with
complex requirements such as VMware vSphere, with best practices dictating
dual Fibre Channel connectivity to shared storage, a separate management
network, and a separate redundant VMware vMotion network in addition to
production IP networks, can be accommodated with a single adapter. Virtual
machines can be connected directly to network interfaces that avoid hypervisor
intervention and which move from server to server whenever the virtual machine
migrates. As described later in this document, the Cisco UCS VIC 1300 platform
automatically adapts to the presence of a 40-Gbps unified fabric and makes 40
Gigabit Ethernet NICs available to be programmed on demand.
third-party CNAs. The most popular form of CNA is a Cisco VIC, which supports
more than 256 (more or less, depending on the model) PCIe-compliant devices
that can be created on demand through Cisco UCS Manager. Applications with
complex requirements such as VMware vSphere, with best practices dictating
dual Fibre Channel connectivity to shared storage, a separate management
network, and a separate redundant VMware vMotion network in addition to
production IP networks, can be accommodated with a single adapter. Virtual
machines can be connected directly to network interfaces that avoid hypervisor
intervention and which move from server to server whenever the virtual machine
migrates. As described later in this document, the Cisco UCS VIC 1300 platform
automatically adapts to the presence of a 40-Gbps unified fabric and makes 40
Gigabit Ethernet NICs available to be programmed on demand.
Upgrade Path with Investment Protection
Simply by swapping out fabric components and cabling within racks, you can
upgrade your existing blade chassis and rack servers to 40 Gigabit Ethernet
connectivity without changing the network adapters in your servers. (This capability
assumes that blade servers are equipped with Cisco UCS VIC 1340 adapters with
port expander cards, and that rack servers are equipped with the Cisco UCS VIC
1285, 1385, or 1387.) Cabling to upstream 40-Gbps access-layer switches is
simple: with Cisco BiDi technology, you can replace transceivers and upgrade to 40
Gbps without having to lay new fiber. Downstream to blade servers, the increase in
capacity is impressive: with only eight cables, each blade server chassis can support
up to 320 Gbps of network connectivity, with 80 Gbps of connectivity to each half-
width blade server. Rack servers can be connected with less oversubscription using
Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ fabric extenders and can still be connected using existing
10 Gigabit Ethernet cabling if desired.
upgrade your existing blade chassis and rack servers to 40 Gigabit Ethernet
connectivity without changing the network adapters in your servers. (This capability
assumes that blade servers are equipped with Cisco UCS VIC 1340 adapters with
port expander cards, and that rack servers are equipped with the Cisco UCS VIC
1285, 1385, or 1387.) Cabling to upstream 40-Gbps access-layer switches is
simple: with Cisco BiDi technology, you can replace transceivers and upgrade to 40
Gbps without having to lay new fiber. Downstream to blade servers, the increase in
capacity is impressive: with only eight cables, each blade server chassis can support
up to 320 Gbps of network connectivity, with 80 Gbps of connectivity to each half-
width blade server. Rack servers can be connected with less oversubscription using
Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ fabric extenders and can still be connected using existing
10 Gigabit Ethernet cabling if desired.