Datasheet

Data Sheet
© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 9 of 22
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In conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 2248TP GE Ethernet Fabric Extender, the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform
can be used as a high-density 1 Gigabit Ethernet switching system, consolidating more than 900 Gigabit
Ethernet connections in a single management plane.
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In conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 2232PP 10GE Fabric Extender, the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform can be
used as a high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching system, consolidating more than 600 10 Gigabit
Ethernet connections in a single management plane.
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As a rack-level I/O consolidation platform, the switches carry Ethernet traffic from servers to the aggregation
layer, and carry Fibre Channel traffic to existing Fibre Channel SANs.
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As a crucial element in data center I/O consolidation, the switches enable I/O consolidation at the access
layer and provide interoperability between the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform and other standards-based
products.
The capability of the Cisco Nexus 5500 platform to function in all these capacities helps protect investment in the
data center with a deployment model in which additional features can be enabled as they are needed.
1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet Access-Layer Switch
The Cisco Nexus 5500 platform is designed with the density, performance, front-to-back cooling, and rear data-port
configuration that make it well suited for aggregating a large number of 10 Gigabit Ethernet links either from servers
or from other access-layer switches. The switch port density allows each switch to support a single rack or
neighboring racks using the SFP+ direct-attach 10 Gigabit copper cabling option. The Cisco Nexus 5500 platform
can also be purchased with only the Ethernet capabilities enabled, allowing IT departments to deploy them in parallel
with existing Fibre Channel SANs.
Figure 8 shows an active-active pair of Cisco Nexus 5500 platform switches cross-connected to redundant Ethernet
NICs in servers. Instead of using multiple 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections to servers for LAN, virtual machine mobility
applications, and Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) SAN support, customers can combine their
traffic over a consolidated, lossless, low-latency 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric.
The Cisco Nexus 5500 platform can be deployed as a top-of-tack, access-layer switch in parallel with existing Fibre
Channel SANs.