Cisco Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch Design Guide
Design Guide
© 2010 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Server Connectivity Technology
A server connects to an access switch with multiple network adapter ports. For a typical rack-mountable server, a
typical configuration consists of the following ports:
typical configuration consists of the following ports:
●
Integrated lights-out (iLO) management port: Replaces the console and provides the capability to turn the
servers on and off
servers on and off
●
Dual lights-out management (LOM) port: Connected redundantly to the management network
●
Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet adapter: Used for production traffic
●
Two single-port host bus adapters (HBAs) or single dual-port HBA: Used for Fibre Channel connectivity
Modern installations consist of servers adopting 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters with or without the capability to support
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) as follows:
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) as follows:
●
iLO
●
Dual LOM
●
Dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter:
Used for production traffic; may or may not include support for FCoE
(unified I/O)
●
(Optional) Two single-port HBAs or single dual-port HBA:
used for Fibre Channel connectivity if the 10
Gigabit Ethernet adapter does not provide FCoE support
Operating Systems Support
Different operating systems handle multiport adapters and multiple network interface cards (NICs) in different ways:
●
Microsoft Windows:
Requires NIC vendors’ teaming software (and drivers) to bundle the network adapters
together
●
Linux operating systems:
vendors also offer specific drivers tailored for their adapters that may provide better performance than the
built-in bonding implementation
built-in bonding implementation
●
Virtualized servers:
Handle multiple NICs natively without the need to install any teaming software on the
guest OS; virtualized server networking is beyond the scope of this guide
For Microsoft products, if you have Intel adapters, you can deploy Intel PROSet with Advanced Network Services
(ANS). For HP products (typically operating on a Broadcom adapter), you can use the HP Network Configuration
Utility (NCU):
(ANS). For HP products (typically operating on a Broadcom adapter), you can use the HP Network Configuration
Utility (NCU):
●
Intel:
Intel adapters can be teamed with ANS (
). Teaming configurations can be performed from the
Properties tab by clicking on the Configure button or by using the Visual Basic scripts in C:\Program
Files\Intel\NCS2\Scripts\.
Files\Intel\NCS2\Scripts\.
●
HP:
HP adapters can be teamed with HP NCU
).
Teaming software from different vendors may be incompatible with each other. For example, if your server
deployment consists of built-in Broadcom LOMs and Intel adapters, then you may not be able to use HP NCU or Intel
PROSet for all the adapters concurrently.
deployment consists of built-in Broadcom LOMs and Intel adapters, then you may not be able to use HP NCU or Intel
PROSet for all the adapters concurrently.