© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Introduction
The Cisco Nexus
®
B22 Blade Fabric Extender for HP (Cisco Nexus B22HP) provides an extension of the Cisco
Nexus switch fabric to the HP server edge. Logically, it behaves like a remote line card to a parent Cisco Nexus
5000 Series Switch. The fabric extender and the parent Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch together form a
distributed modular system. The Cisco Nexus B22HP forwards all traffic to the parent Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
Switch over eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. Low-cost uplink connections of up to 10 meters can be made with
copper Twinax cable, and longer connections of up to 100 meters can use the Cisco Fabric Extender Transceiver
(FET-10G). Standard 10-Gbps optics such as short reach (SR) and long reach (LR) are also supported. Downlinks
to each server are auto negotiating for 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet and work with all HP Ethernet and converged
network adapter (CNA) mezzanines, allowing customers a choice of Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE), or Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) connections. Because the Cisco Nexus B22 is a
transparent extension of a Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch, traffic can be switched according to policies
established by the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch with a single point of management.
The Cisco Nexus B22 provides the following benefits:
●
Highly scalable, consistent server access: This distributed modular system creates a scalable server access
environment with no reliance on Spanning Tree Protocol and with consistency between blade and rack
servers.
●
Simplified operations: The availability of one single point of management and policy enforcement using
upstream Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches eases the commissioning and decommissioning of blades
through zero-touch installation and automatic configuration of fabric extenders.
●
Increased business benefits: Consolidation, reduced cabling, investment protection through feature
inheritance from the parent switch, and the capability to add functions without the need for a major
equipment upgrade of server-attached infrastructure all contribute to reduced operating expenses (OpEx)
and capital expenditures (CapEx).
Each member of the Cisco Nexus B22 integrates into the I/O module slot of a third-party blade chassis, drawing
both power and cooling from the blade chassis itself.
Network Diagram
Figure 1 presents a sample network topology that can be built using the Cisco Nexus B22HP, Cisco Nexus 2000
Series Fabric Extenders, and Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches. In this topology, the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
serves as the parent switch, performing all packet switching and policy enforcement for the entire distributed
modular system. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series also serves as the only point of management for both configuration
and monitoring within the domain, making it simple to manage blade server and rack server connections together.
