Nexus and FEX Appliances

[visitor68]

What exactly is the value proposition of the Cisco FEX architecture solution?

From my understanding, the 2124, 2248 and 2232 FEXes are 1 RU appliances that act as ToR switches for server access connectivity.

Basically, each FEX ToR appliance is logically a blade in a virtual chassis, in which the Cisco Nexus 5000 acts as a Supervisor module. The Nexus 5000 is where all the configuration, management and intelligence resides. This provides for centralized management of the physical servers, as well as the virtual servers through VN-Link technology.

Is this about it? The FEXes are simply dumb blade switches that have no configuration requirements? What else is the big benefit of the FEX architecture?

[visitor68]

Anyone?

[Dan-Ciprian Cicioiu]

Hi ,

Yes you are right.

Fex are some distributed linecards , and Nexus 5000 is the supervisor.

The plus is the as you wrote , posibility of using top of the rack design without adding operational overhead.

Also N5000 delivers Fibre  Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), which allows storage traffic over an Ethernet infrastructure.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9670/white_paper_c11-468838.html

Dan

[visitor68]

Thanks, Dan...was hoping to engender a discussion from someone who has experience deploying it....