Nexus 2232 Performance

[s-pirrello]

Hi,

I've been reading about the performace of the Nexus 2232 switches and had a couple questions on the listed specs within the data sheet.  What exactlly does the following mean?  They somewhat contradict each other.

1. "Fabric Speed: 80 Gbps in each direction (160 Gbps full duplex)"

2. "Performance: Hardware forwarding at 560 Gbps or 595"

I'm guessing the "80Gbps in each direction" is related to the 8 x 10Gb uplinks and if this is the case, what is the "560Gbps" derived from?

[Fabienne Stephanoff]

I will check with our product manager and get back to you.

Cheers,

Fabienne

[s-pirrello]

Fabienne,

Please let me know on what you hear.  Thank you!

[Lucien Avramov · Accepted solution]

You are absolutely right,  "80Gbps in each direction" is related to the 8 x 10Gb uplinks, we call this the fabric speed. The fabric link is the connection between the nexus 2000 and the nexus 5000. For the later number, it's the throughput capacity for all the 32 ports. In any case there is oversubcription going to the fabric, so 80 GBPS is the maximum you can have going to the fabric.

Hope that clarifies it.

[s-pirrello]

Lucien,

It seems if I'm only getting 80Gbps to the fabric, then in reality the 560Gbps is in regards to the port density.  The Fex switches must traverse back to the 5000s even for Layer 2 communication in the event two servers want to communicate correct?

[Lucien Avramov]

80x2 (full duplex). All communication goes to the N5K and back that is correct.

[Lucien Avramov]

the 560GB comes if you have multicast replication for example. This happens for example locally on the FEX.

[s-pirrello]

Thank you for the follow up Lucien!