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Cisco UCS 4th and 5th generation FI components provide compute power in the 3-Tier Platform. The following table shows the Cisco Nexus and Cisco UCS components:
Table 1. Cisco Nexus and Cisco UCS 3-Tier Platform components
Component | Description |
Cisco UCS 5108 blade server chassis
| Cisco USCM manages the 6U blade server chassis that houses FIs, fabric extenders (FEX), and servers. |
Cisco UCS B-Series blade servers and X-Series Blade Servers
| Cisco UCS Manager manages the 7U X-series compute node chassis that houses FIs, FEX, and servers. |
Cisco UCS B-Series blade servers and X-Series Blade Servers | B200 M6 servers X210 M6 or M7 servers X410 M7 servers Cisco UCS VICs:
Cisco UCS X-series VICs
|
Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers | C220/240 M6 or M7 Servers Cisco UCS M6 VICs:
Cisco UCS M7 VICs:
For the Cisco UCS VIC 15428, the recommended UCSM firmware release is 4.2(2). M7 Servers are only supported in existing UCSM domains for expansions. For new builds M7 servers are only supported in IMM as they require an Intersight license within UCSM. Note: For M7 servers and UCSX servers support in UCSM firmware release should be 4.3(2b) or greater. |
4th-generation Cisco UCS 6454 FIs | Contains 2, 4, or 6 x 100 Gbps uplinks Configured with 4, 8, or 16 FC connections per FI |
4th-generation Cisco UCS 64108 FIs | Contains 4, 6, or 8 x 100 Gbps uplinks Configured with 8 or 16 FC connections per FI |
4th-generation Cisco UCS 2408, 2204XP, or 2208XP FEX | The FEX connects the I/O fabric between the Cisco UCS 6454 FI and the Cisco UCS 5108 blade server chassis. The Cisco UCS 64108 FI supports only the Cisco UCS 2408 FEX. |
4th-generation Cisco Nexus 2232PP Fabric Extender | The fabric extender provides 32 x 10 GbE and FcoE SFP+ server ports and 8 x 10 GbE and FcoE SFP+ uplink ports in a compact, 1U form factor. |
5th-generation Cisco UCS 6536 Fabric Interconnects | Contains 2, 4, 6 or 8x 100Gbps uplinks Configured with 8 or 16 FC breakout ports per FI. |
Cisco UCS X9108-25G and X9108-100G Intelligent Fabric Module (IFM) |
|
Each FI reserves multiple ports to connect Cisco SAN switches and carry FC traffic between the compute layer and the storage layer. SAN port channels carry FC traffic between the FIs and upstream Cisco MDS switches. The FEX within the blade server chassis connects to the FIs over converged networking. By default, servers in the 3-Tier Platform boot VMware vSphere ESXi from local M.2 cards. Booting from SAN is optional.
Regardless of the number of blade servers in the blade server chassis, the FEX connect northbound to the Fis with:
The Cisco UCS 2408 FEX has eight external 25 Gb ports and 32 internal 10 Gb ports. Each FEX connects northbound to the FIs, regardless of the number of blade servers in the blade server chassis. The Cisco UCS 2408 FEX works with the Cisco UCS 6454 or 64108 FI at 25 Gbps.
Cisco UCS C-Series rack servers connect directly to the following FIs:
Each 3-Tier Platform contains at least two Cisco UCS FIs to form a HA cluster. Each FI pair:
The Cisco UCS 4th-generation components are:
For more information, see the Cisco UCS 64108 FI data sheet.
The Cisco UCS 6536 Fabric Interconnects are 36 port, 32 Gbps FC, 25 GbE or 100GbE capable switches. The Cisco UCS 6536 Fabric Interconnects connect to a pair of 100 Gbps capable Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2 Data Plane Switches that support up to seven Cisco UCS compute domains.
For more information, see the Cisco UCS 6536 Fabric Interconnect data sheet.