Datasheet

Data Sheet
© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 5 of 22
The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series provides two types of ports: ports for end-host attachment (host interfaces) and uplink
ports (fabric interfaces). Fabric Interfaces are differentiated with a yellow color for connectivity to the upstream
parent Cisco Nexus switch.
Table 1 lists the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders. Fabric extenders can be mixed and matched to a parent
switch to provide connectivity options.
Table 1. Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Specifications
Description Specification
Cisco Nexus 2148T 48 1000BASE-T host interfaces and 4 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric interfaces (SFP+)
Cisco Nexus 2224TP 24 100/1000BASE-T host interfaces and 2 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric interfaces (SFP+)
Cisco Nexus 2248TP 48 100/1000BASE-T host interfaces and 4 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric interfaces (SFP+)
Cisco Nexus 2232PP 32 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE host interfaces (SFP+) and 8 10 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE fabric
interfaces (SFP+)
The Cisco Nexus 2224TP and 2248TP provide port density options for highly scalable 100-Mbps and 1 Gigabit
Ethernet connectivity. The Cisco Nexus 2232PP provides ease of migration from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit
Ethernet while supporting highly scalable 10 Gigabit environments.
The Cisco Nexus 2232PP 10GE Fabric Extender is an excellent platform for migration from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10
Gigabit Ethernet and unified fabric environments. It supports FCoE and DCB, which increases the reliability,
efficiency, and scalability of Ethernet networks. These features allow the switches to support multiple traffic classes
over a lossless Ethernet fabric, thus enabling consolidation of LAN, SAN, and cluster environments.
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series and Cisco Nexus 5500 Platform Deployment Scenarios
The fabric extenders can be used in the following deployment scenarios:
●
Rack servers with 1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet NICs; the fabric extender can be physically located at the top of
the rack, and the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform switch can reside in the middle or at the end of the row
●
Mixed 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet environments in which rack servers are running at both speeds in the same
rack or in separate racks
●
10 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE deployments; servers with CNAs for unified fabric environments with the Cisco
Nexus 2232PP
●
Server racks with integrated lights-out (iLO) management; 100 Megabit Ethernet or 1 Gigabit Ethernet
management and iLO interfaces
●
1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet blade servers with pass-through blades
●
Virtualized access
The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series can be used in conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform in two main design
scenarios:
●
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders single-connected to one upstream Cisco Nexus 5500 platform
switch: In this deployment scenario, access-layer redundancy is achieved through redundant server
connections to two upstream Cisco Nexus 5500 platform switches using Cisco virtual PortChannel (vPC)
technology or server NIC teaming to two Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders.
●
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders dual-connected to two upstream Cisco Nexus 5500 platform
switches (using vPC): In this deployment scenario, access-layer redundancy is achieved through a
combination of Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders dual-connected to an upstream parent switch and
server NIC teaming.