6296UP Fabric Interconnect Connectivity

[suhagdesai1]

Hi,

Below is the setup –

• 1 * CISCO 5108 Chassis
• 2 * B200 M3 Blades with VIC 1240
• Expander Card per blade
• Fabric Interconnect 6296UP (A + B)

Can anyone explain or provide some connectivity link on how fabric interconnect ports are mapped with the blade server ?

How FEX ports are mapped with the Fabric interconnect ?

Suppose if I add 2 more blade (Half size) then do I need to add cabling or I can still run with the existing one ?  Currently 2 cables are running between FI and FEX.

[Qiese Dides]

Hi Suhagdesai,

The guide below is very helpful in illustrating these;

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/spec_sheet_c17-644224.pdf

For example Figure 11 shows it from the Mezzanine slot to the Fabric Extender.  All these figures illustrate the difference between half size and full width. Let me know if you have any other questions.

HTH,

Qiese Dides

[suhagdesai1]

Hello Qiese Dides,

Thanks. It is very useful. I am now almost clear about network part. So what I understand is, suppose if I add one more blade then I have to connect one cable each from each FEX to FI and eventually, I can see total 8*10 GBps on the VMware console. hope, this is correct....

Second part is on Fiber Connection - How the Fiber connectivity is done from B200 M3 up to Storage end through FI ?

Thanks Again,

Suhag.

[Qiese Dides · Accepted solution]

Well you connect the blade to the Chassis then you its based on the configuration from the IOM to the Fabric Interconnect, the backplane ports will automatically go to the IO module.

So you can either do Direct Attach Storage (Fabric Interconnect --> Storage Array) or use a switch such as a N5k or MDS so it would be Fabric Interconnect --> MDS --> Storage Array, this depends on the setup you are trying to accomplish.

A good guide for Direct Attach Storage is below;

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/servers-unified-computing/ucs-infrastructure-ucs-manager-software/116082-config-ucs-das-00.html

[suhagdesai1]

Hello,

Can I ask you one last question. Apologies if I am using the same post.

In one of the setup, I already running below setup.

• 1 * CISCO 5108 Chassis
• 4 * B200 M3 Blades with VIC 1240 (Half Size)
• Expander Card per blade
• Fabric Interconnect 6296UP (A + B)

Presently, we have two connection from each of the FEX to FI...so total 4 cables are running between FEX2100 and FI6296UP.

Now if I add four more blade B200 M3 (Half Size) in to the same chassis then do I need to connect more cables between FEX and FI.....

Basically, I m still trying to understand the logic and mapping of physical cabling between FI and FEX.

Regards,

[Qiese Dides · Accepted solution]

No worries :).

Between the Fex and the Fabric Interconnect you can have 1, 2 ,4, 8 connections. This is described in the Chassis Discovery Policy.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/2-0/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_0/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_01100.html

If you got to Table 1 you can see the parameters for each type of setup. This is between the IOM (FEX) and the Fabric Interconnect. The blades have backplane ports that are connected to the FEX automatically when they get put in the chassis.