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Cisco SFS 7000P and SFS 7000D InfiniBand Server Switches Hardware Installation Guide
OL-10853-01
Chapter 1 Product Overview
System Features
Scalability
The embedded subnet manager running on the Cisco SFS 7000P and SFS 7000D Server Switches can
manage up to 1,152 hosts.
High Availability
High availability operates at the hardware, port, and fabric level. These features are described below.
Hardware
High availability at the hardware level means that the Cisco SFS 7000P and SFS 7000D Server Switches
feature hot-swappable redundant power and cooling.
Ports
High availability is supported at the ports level such that if any single InfiniBand port fails, none of the
other ports have interrupted service.
Fabric
High availability is supported at the fabric level as well. For redundancy, InfiniBand HCAs can be
dual-connected to a redundant pair of switches.
When an InfiniBand fabric includes more than one Cisco SFS 7000P Server Switch or
Cisco SFS 7000D Server Switch, and the subnet manager fails on the Cisco SFS 7000P Server Switch
or the Cisco SFS 7000D Server Switch that is acting as the master, another subnet manager takes over
within seconds. (See
Figure 1-3
.)
Figure 1-3
Example of Redundant InfiniBand Fabric
Note
A performance degradation occurs if you mix 10-Gbps and 20-Gbps InfiniBand ports.
HCA
HCA
HCA
HCA
EN mgmt
ports
EN mgmt
ports
Switch 1
Switch 1
InfiniBand
Chassis A
InfiniBand
Chassis B
IB Host 1
IB Host 2
InfiniBand connections
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