Cisco IOM 2304XP I/O Module (4 External, 8 Internal 40Gb Ports)

Cisco Unified Computing System overview

The Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS™) is a next-generation data center platform that unites computing, network, storage access, and virtualization resources into a cohesive system designed to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase business agility. The system integrates a low-latency, lossless 40 Gigabit Ethernet unified network fabric with enterprise-class, x86-architecture servers. The system is an integrated, scalable, multichassis platform in which all resources participate in a unified management domain.

Product overview

Cisco UCS 2304 Fabric Extender brings the unified fabric into the blade server enclosure, providing Gigabit Ethernet connectivity between the blade servers and the fabric interconnect, simplifying diagnostics, cabling, and management. It is a third-generation I/O Module (IOM) that shares the same form factor as the second-generation Cisco UCS 2200 Series Fabric Extenders and is backward compatible with the shipping Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis.

The Cisco UCS 2304 connects the I/O fabric between the Cisco UCS 6300 Series Fabric Interconnects and the Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis, enabling a lossless and deterministic Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric to connect all blades and chassis together. Because the fabric extender is similar to a distributed line card, it does not perform any switching and is managed as an extension of the fabric interconnects. This approach removes switching from the chassis, reducing overall infrastructure complexity and enabling Cisco UCS to scale to many chassis without multiplying the number of switches needed, reducing TCO and allowing all chassis to be managed as a single, highly available management domain.

The Cisco UCS 2304 also manages the chassis environment (power supply, fans, and blades) in conjunction with the fabric interconnect. Therefore, separate chassis management modules are not required.

Cisco UCS 2304 Fabric Extenders fit into the back of the Cisco UCS 5100 Series chassis. Each Cisco UCS 5100 Series chassis can support up to two fabric extenders, allowing increased capacity and redundancy.

Performance

• Hardware forwarding at 960 Gbps
• Low-latency cut-through design, providing predictable, consistent traffic latency regardless of packet size, traffic pattern, or enabled features

Layer 2

• Layer 2 VLAN trunks
• IEEE 802.1Q VLAN encapsulation
• Support for up to 1024 VLANs and Virtual SANs (VSANs)
• Jumbo frames on all ports (up to 9216 bytes)
• Pause frames (IEEE 802.3x)

QoS

• Layer 2 IEEE 802.1p (Class of Service [CoS])
• CoS-based egress queuing
• Egress strict-priority queuing
• Eight hardware queues per port

High availability

• Up to two fabric extenders can work in the Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis
• Active-active data-plane operation with failover
• Capability to fail over from one fabric extender to another in the event of a failure
• Active-passive management-plane operation
• Support for nonstop management-plane functions; if the active fabric extender fails, the passive fabric extender takes over the chassis management functions

Management

• Management of fabric extenders integrated into Cisco UCS Manager (please refer to the Cisco UCS Manager data sheet for more information about management interfaces)
• Capability to manage blade server chassis components such as power supplies, fans, and blades in conjunction with the fabric interconnect
• Firmware levels between the fabric extender and fabric interconnect always synchronized

Low-Latency, Lossless 40 Gigabit Ethernet Unified Network Fabric

• PFC (per-priority pause frame support)
• Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX) Protocol
• IEEE 802.1Qaz: Bandwidth management

Industry standards

• IEEE 802.1p: CoS prioritization
• IEEE 802.1Q: VLAN tagging
• IEEE 802.3: Ethernet
• IEEE 802.3ad: Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
• IEEE 802.3ba: 40 Gigabit Ethernet
• QSFP+ support

Environment

• Operating temperature: 32 to 104°F (0 to 40°C)
• Nonoperating temperature: -40 to 158°F (-40 to 70°C)
• Humidity: 5 to 95% (noncondensing)
• Altitude: 0 to 10,000 ft (0 to 3000m)