Nexus 2248 - 6509?

[roger perkin]

I am completely new to Nexus and we are currently running a 6509 VSS core with 3750's in the racks.

I have another rack with an HPC7000, NetApps and 2 x Nexus 2248's

I have been asked to connect the 2248's to the 6509?

Now I believe these switches to be completely different beasts and that they are L2 only???

Where in a Data Centre should a Nexus 2248 be used, I am looking for basics here and understanding if the 2248's can be used on their own or do they need a Nexus 5000 upstream?

Thanks

Roger

[Dan-Ciprian Cicioiu · Accepted solution]

Hi Roger,

You are right FEX 2248 or any other FEX model could not be used as standalone.

They are line cards for Nexus 5000 and 7000.

Dan

[Oleksandr Nesterov]

Ho Roger

Nexus 2000 are also called Fabric Extenders (FEX).

They are not standalone devices - and managed from parent switch (nexus 5000 or nexus 7000 ) and can replace top-of-the-rack switches. 

So instead of buying intelligent switches for each rack - you can use FEX (also some times called extended line-card) to connect your servers to powerful core switch using such nexus platform features as VPC

HTH,

Alex

[Leo Laohoo]

As what Alex has stated, the Nexus 2K will only "talk" to a Nexus 5K or 7K, period.

When you connect the 2K to either 5k or 7K, you do all the management and configured on the 5K or 7K.  The 2K acts like an "extended arm", hence it's called the Fabric Extender.

[roger perkin]

Thanks for all your replies, I now know a lot more than I did a few days ago.

Roger