Cisco Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect White Paper
Solution Overview
January 2016
© 2016 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public information.
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The Challenge
Continuous progress in data center technology is propelling a transition to 40
Gigabit Ethernet. A decade ago, servers became powerful enough to saturate
Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, prompting a move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Today, the
power of Intel® Xeon® processors combined with massive amounts of memory
allow servers to saturate 10 Gigabit Ethernet links, increasing the demand for more
network bandwidth and for more headroom to absorb spikes in workload demands.
Gigabit Ethernet. A decade ago, servers became powerful enough to saturate
Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, prompting a move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Today, the
power of Intel® Xeon® processors combined with massive amounts of memory
allow servers to saturate 10 Gigabit Ethernet links, increasing the demand for more
network bandwidth and for more headroom to absorb spikes in workload demands.
Data center networks are transitioning to 40 Gigabit Ethernet to accommodate
the increased network and storage traffic imposed by an increasing number
of application workloads. With virtualization now the norm, massive east-west
scalability is required, as well as the ability to handle more bandwidth between
servers in virtualization clusters. Many organizations are accommodating this shift
by adopting the leaf-and-spine network topology provided by Cisco® Application
Centric Networking (Cisco ACI™). This approach delivers more consistent latency
and greater east-west bandwidth while helping maintain security and quality
of service (QoS) through policy-based network infrastructure deployment and
management.
the increased network and storage traffic imposed by an increasing number
of application workloads. With virtualization now the norm, massive east-west
scalability is required, as well as the ability to handle more bandwidth between
servers in virtualization clusters. Many organizations are accommodating this shift
by adopting the leaf-and-spine network topology provided by Cisco® Application
Centric Networking (Cisco ACI™). This approach delivers more consistent latency
and greater east-west bandwidth while helping maintain security and quality
of service (QoS) through policy-based network infrastructure deployment and
management.
The problem is how to join servers with a need for 40 Gbps of bandwidth with a
40-Gbps-ready data center network so that the transition can be graceful, with
minimal cost and disruption. Existing servers need to be accommodated, and a plan
needs to be in place to support new servers. With traditional infrastructure, each
server would need new network interfaces and cabling to top-of-rack switches, and
then new fiber from top-of-rack switches to aggregation-layer switches—requiring
tasks taking hours of administrator time per server and significant recabling time and
expense.
40-Gbps-ready data center network so that the transition can be graceful, with
minimal cost and disruption. Existing servers need to be accommodated, and a plan
needs to be in place to support new servers. With traditional infrastructure, each
server would need new network interfaces and cabling to top-of-rack switches, and
then new fiber from top-of-rack switches to aggregation-layer switches—requiring
tasks taking hours of administrator time per server and significant recabling time and
expense.