Sunfire B1600 Overview, Switch Architecture, Ways of Accessing the Switch Management Application

1.1Overview

The switches provide Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for the Sun Fire B1600 blade system chassis. If a fault develops in one switch, operation continues without interruption on the second. All components in the chassis—blades, SSCs and power supply units (PSUs)—plug into a common midplane which provides all interconnection between the components.

Each of the 16 server blades is connected to a single port on each switch by a Gigabit Ethernet link that provides the blade’s principal means of I/O. The switch within each SSC provides the Gigabit Ethernet fabric that connects all the blades together, in addition to eight external links for connection to the network. Each blade is also connected to the System Controller (SC) within each SSC by a simple serial link. The SC enables you to manage and monitor the components of the chassis. It also gives you access to the switch's command-line interface, and to the console for each server blade installed in the chassis.

1.1.1Switch Architecture

The switch employs a high-speed switching fabric that enables simultaneous transport of multiple packets at low latency on all ports. The switch also uses store- and-forward technology to ensure maximum data integrity. In this mode, the entire packet must be received into a port buffer and checked for validity before being forwarded, preventing errors from propagating throughout the network.

1.1.2Ways of Accessing the Switch Management Application

There is a serial console port implemented with an RJ-45 jack that provides on-site management access to the SC. When you apply power to the system chassis, the interface for the SC is displayed. To access the command-line interface for the switch, see “Configuration Options” on page 2-2or refer to the Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Software Setup Guide.

This command-line interface can also be accessed directly using telnet through the 100BASE-TX RJ-45 management port (NETMGT) on the SSC.

The switch can also be managed by connecting to this port over the network with a Web browser or SNMP/RMON software.

1-2Sun Fire B1600 Blade System Chassis Switch Administration Guide • June 2003