Cisco Systems SFS 3012R Features

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Cisco SFS 3012R Multifabric Server Switch Hardware Installation Guide

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Chapter1 Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch Overview

Features

Features

The CiscoSFS 3012R Server Switch provides unprecedented levels of availability, scalability, and

manageability for deploying server clusters and on-demand computing. Server switc h modules provide

up to one terabit of internal bandwidth, and Ethernet or Fibre Channel field-replaceable interface

modules enable up to 72 Ethernet ports or up to 24 Fibre Channel ports and up to 24 I nfiniBand ports in

a single chassis.

Expressly designed to apply networking principles to computing problems, the Cisco SFS 3012R Server

Switch uses a switched InfiniBand fabric to interconnect server resources at 10 Gbps. The combination

of high bandwidth and low latency allows resources to be disaggregated and dynamically r eassembled

without the limits of the shared PCI bus.

The Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch integrates storage, server, and networking I/O into one unified

fabric. With only one interface module in each host, you can manage all resources on one fabric and

eliminate the need to install and manage multiple Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and inter-process

communications (IPC) modules. The Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch aggregates and load ba lances all

types of I/O, significantly reducing the number of managed ports in your environment and increasing

availability.

Based on the Transparent Topology architecture, the Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch creates virtual IP

and Fibre Channel interfaces on every server, allowing existing IP and storage area network ( SAN)

resources to seamlessly extend to server clusters. Using Fibre Channel gateways, SAN ma nagement

technologies can access each individual node, enabling critical storage management and security

models, such as Fibre Channel fabric zoning and storage-based logical unit number (LUN) zoning. By

adding Ethernet gateways, IT managers can also enable full Inte rnet Protocol (IP) connectivity,

extending the value of server clusters to the res t of the enterprise.

The CiscoSFS 3012R Server Switch is architected for full redundancy within a single box. Every

component in the data path can be dual-connected from end to end. For example, a server with a 2-port

Host Channel Adaptor (HCA) can be dual-attached to the two InfiniBand switch modules on the

Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch. Each gateway is also dual attached to the dual switch module. In turn,

the gateway modules are dual attached to Ethernet or Fibre Channel networks in pairs. With the addition

of centralized load balancing and port aggregation, Ethernet and Fibre Channel uplink conn ections can

be trunked and load balanced, allowing the Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch to reroute ar ound failures.

Each independently removable component is hot-swappable.

Figure 1-2 shows the internal Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch architecture. Components within the

dotted line reside within the Cisco SFS 3012R Server Switch chassis.