What is cisco blade switch

[mahesh18]

hi all,

Can some one explain me what is cisco blade switch.

Is it servers built in Cisco Switch .

What OS it is running.I see some support Dell ,HP etc.

Many thanks

[archari]

Its a switch designed to fit into certain large server chassis offerings from specific vendors. There are specific versions for each manufacturer.

E.g. 3020 blades are for HP

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/blades/3020/hardware/installation/guide/HIGINSTL.html

EDIT: The switch runs IOS and has a web management GUI

Check out the hw installation guide to see how they fit into the server environment.

[mahesh18]

Hi

So it is like any other normaal switch .

It has same hardware as any other switch but

chasis can be of dell or hp depending on vendor.

so do these switches connect to servers through port on them or servers are also built inside the switch

[archari]

The blades connect directly into the chassis fabric (vendors open up a part of their fabric for the switch). Just like you would pop in a blade server you pop in a blade switch ;-)

It is like any normal L2 switch (with limited L3 features that are needed in a typical datacenter)

Servers are NOT built into the switch. Both blade servers and the blade switch plug into the chassis provided by the vendor.

HTH

[mahesh18]

Hi.

SO my understanding is

So it means that we have cisco switch ,HP blade servers both fitted into HP Vendor chasis right?

Correct me if i am wrong

thanks

[mahesh18]

Hi,

Also it is possible We have one

IP of blade switch which we use to Telnet and also we have different IP for servers which are in Blade switch

[Jon Marshall]

Mahesh

The chassis are provided by HP or IBM as are the servers. The switch part is provided by Cisco, runs Cisco IOS and is inserted into the chassis. The original versions of these chassis's had HP and IBM own switches but these were replaced by Cisco switches which makes it easier to integrate into your existing Cisco infrastructure.

The switches can have a management IP address the same as any other L2 Cisco switch such as the 2950/60/70 switches. The servers would have their own IP addresses.

Jon