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The fourth blade chassis from the left in Figure 1 contains Cisco Nexus B22 for IBM fabric extenders that connect
to both Cisco Nexus 5500 platform switches with enhanced vPC (EvPC) technology. This configuration allows
active-active load balancing from the fabric extenders and the computing nodes.
The last two configurations show how rack-mount servers can connect to the same Cisco Nexus parent switch
using rack-mount Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders. The topology for blade servers and rack-mount
servers can be identical if desired.
Hardware Installation
Installation of the Cisco Nexus B22 for IBM in the rear of the blade server chassis is similar to the installation of
other connection blades. The layout of the blade server chassis, as well as the server types and mezzanine cards
used, determines the slots that should be populated with the Cisco Nexus B22 for IBM for 10 Gigabit Ethernet
connectivity. Tables 1 through 3 summarize the typical options for servers using dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet
devices.
Table 1
Mapping of Third-Party Half-Wide Server Dual-Port Mezzanine Card to I/O Module
Card
Connection Blades
LAN on motherboard (LoM) plus
mezzanine card in slot 1
I/O module bays 1 and 2
Mezzanine card in slot 2
I/O module bays 3 and 4
Table 2
Mapping of Third-Party Half-Wide Server Quad-Port Mezzanine Card to I/O Module
Card
Connection Blades
Mezzanine 1 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 1 and 2
Mezzanine 2 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 3 and 4
Table 3
Mapping of Third-Party Full-Wide Server Quad-Port Mezzanine Card to I/O Module
Card
Connection Blades
Mezzanine 1 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 1 and 2
Mezzanine 2 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 3 and 4
Mezzanine 3 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 1 and 2
Mezzanine 4 ports 1 to 4
I/O module bays 3 and 4
After the Cisco Nexus B22 for IBM fabric extenders are installed, the chassis management module (CMM) should
be updated to at least the minimum version shown in Table 4.
Table 4
Management Blade Minimum Firmware Versions
Blade Chassis
Server Manager Firmware
IBM PureFlex
™
System Model 8721HC1
DSA:9.41, IMM2:2.6, UEFI:1.31, and CMM: 2PET12E
