© 2001, Myricom, Inc.
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Revision: 27 August 2001
locally by efficient switching power regulators. These power regulators provide a means
for selectively turning power off to line cards or backplanes under fault conditions, such
as over-temperature.
•
a hot-pluggable fan tray. The fan tray is replaced from the front (see page 7). The fans
on the fan trays are Panasonic Panaflo fans with an unusually high MTBF of 500,000
hours (each). Also, these fans have tachometer outputs. The fan µC converts the
tachometer outputs to fan RPMs, which can be read by the monitoring line card.
The modularity of the Myrinet-2000 switches and switch networks provides configuration
flexibility, manufacturing economies, and, most importantly:
•
easy expansion or reconfiguration of switches and switch networks already installed, and
•
the ability to repair switches by replacing just a line card or the fan tray.
Although the MTBF of Myrinet components is exceptionally high, field failures do occur. The
monitoring line card allows nearly any fault to be identified unambiguously. A line card or a fan
tray is referred to as a field-replaceable unit (FRU). The enclosure is also an FRU. When hot-
swappable power supplies become available, they will also be FRUs. It is obviously much
easier to replace a line card, a fan tray, or a power supply than it would be to ship an entire
switch network back to Myricom for repair.
M3-E128 with an M3-M monitoring line card and 16 M3-SW16-8F Fiber line cards
Fan
Tray
Monitoring
Line Card
(M3-M)
Port
Line Cards
