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VCE Vblock™ Systems Series 700 Architecture Overview
Compute layer hardware
Compute overview
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B-series blades provide the computing power within a Vblock system.
The blades are installed in Cisco UCS chassis.
For the 700MX and the 700LX, fabric extenders within the Cisco UCS chassis connect to Cisco fabric
interconnects over converged Ethernet. Up to four 10 GbE ports on each fabric extender connect northbound
to the fabric interconnects regardless of the number of blades in the chassis. These connections carry IP and
storage traffic. The universal ports on the Cisco UCS 6248UP Series Fabric Interconnects can handle
Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel (FC) transports eliminating the need for
special-purpose expansion cards that are needed for the Cisco UCS 6140XP Fabric Interconnects.
The 700MX has an additional option of the Cisco UCS 6140XP Fabric Interconnects. Fabric extenders within
the Cisco UCS chassis connect to Cisco fabric interconnects over converged Ethernet. Four 10 GbE ports on
each fabric extender connect northbound to the fabric interconnects regardless of the number of blades in the
chassis. These connections carry IP and storage traffic.
For the 700MX and the 700LX, each fabric interconnect has multiple ports reserved by VCE for 10 GbE ports.
VCE has reserved these ports for southbound connections to the Cisco UCS 5108 chassis or for northbound
connections to the network connectivity layer. The northbound ports connect to upstream access/aggregation
switches. These connections carry IP traffic to and from the customer network. In a unified storage
configuration, these ports also carry IP traffic to the X-Blades within the storage layer.
Each fabric interconnect also has multiple ports reserved by VCE for 8 Gb Fibre Channel. These ports connect
to Cisco MDS storage switches. These connections carry FC traffic between the compute layer and the
storage layer. In a unified storage configuration, these connections also enable storage area network (SAN)
booting of the UCS blades.
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