The Cisco Nexus 5020 switch is a 2 RU, top-of-rack switch that provides Ethernet and Fibre Channel
consolidation in a single physical cable. The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol is used to
consolidate Ethernet and Fibre Channel traffic onto the same physical connection between the server and
the switch. As a top-of-rack switch, all the servers in the rack connect to the Cisco Nexus 5020 switch,
and it connects to the LAN or SAN.

The Cisco Nexus 5020 switch is a part of a family of switches that provide 10-Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE
ports and both 10-Gigabit Ethernet and native 4-, 2-, or 1-Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The switches
provide consolidated I/O connectivity to both production Ethernet LANs and Fibre Channel SANs in a
cost-effective, high-performance, low-latency Ethernet switch.

Table 1-7

Supported Cables

Connector (Media)

Cable

Distance

Power
(each
side)

Transceiver
Latency (Link) Standard

SFP+ CU copper

Twinax

5 m

Approx.
0.1 W

~ 0.1
microseconds

SFF 8431

SFP+ ACU copper

Active Twinax

7 m/

10 m

Approx.
0.5 W

~ 6.8
nanoseconds

SFF 8461

SFP+ SR MMF and SR

MM OM2

MM OM3

82 m/

300 m

1 W

~ 0
microseconds

IEEE 802.3ae