Q: UCS FI 6332 FC uplink to MDS 9148

[Tom Grisham]

We have purchased and received a pair of Nexus FI's 6332's that need to connect to the UCS-IOM-2208XP on the server side, and uplink to Cat-4500-X's in VSS mode on the LAN side.

My confusion is the challenge or possible incompatibility on the SAN FC links to the MDS 9148's.

Given that the FI 6332's are 40Gig QSFP+'s only and the MDS 9148's have 4,8,16 FC SFP's. I have two questions.

1. Is there a 40Gig QSFP+ FCoE to 4x8Gig SFP FC breakout physical cable?

2. Can the FI 6332 speak FC natively to the MDS?  note: this is not the 6332-16UP, rather the 6332

[mnaile]

I'm not aware of any FC capable break out cables. Would you be able to use the 40G-10G adapter (CVR-QSFP-SFP10G) and plug the FC transceiver into it?

[jim_atkinson]

The GEN 3 6332 model does not support Unified Ports (10G / 2/4/8Gbps)

[Wes Austin]

To clarify which 6300 support what port speeds:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/6332-specsheet.pdf 

6332:

6332-16UP:

[Kirk J]

If you want to connect to the MDS with native FC at 4/8/16Gb, then you need a UCS FI 6332-16UP model which lists:

Ports 1—16 operate as SFP+ Universal Ports capable of operating at 1/10-Gbps fixed Ethernet or
4/8/16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports.

You can't stick a FC transceiver on the end of a Ethernet Breakout cable.

Since you have a 6332 model, you will need to use FCOE, although I'm not sure the MDS 9148 actually has any FCOE/Eth port based models.

Kinda looks like you really need a 6332-16UP for your native FC scenario.

Kirk...