HP ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch Overview - White Paper

Abstract

This white paper provides an overview of the ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch option for

the ProLiant BL e-Class system. The C-GbE Interconnect Switch option includes a pair of industry-

standard layer 2 Ethernet switches that dramatically reduce the number of Ethernet network cables

attached to the rear of the ProLiant BL e-Class server blade enclosure.

The intended audience for this paper is engineers and system administrators familiar with the ProLiant

BL e-Class system. For those less familiar with the ProLiant BL e-Class system, the web page at

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/e-class/index.html

provides essential

information.

Introduction

The ProLiant BL e-Class system includes a 3U (5.25 inch) server blade enclosure supporting twenty

server blades and redundant, hot-plug power and cooling. Since the ProLiant BL e-Class system

packages many server blades in a small space, the number of network cables within this space can

quickly become overwhelming. A ProLiant BL e-Class server enclosure with twenty ProLiant BL10e

series servers contains forty 10/100 Mbps network adapter (NIC) Ethernet signals.

The e-Class server blade enclosure includes an interconnect tray that provides the connections for the

Ethernet signals. HP offers a family of e-Class interconnect tray options allowing customers to choose

the level Ethernet network signals consolidation. Interconnect options include two patch panel pass-

through trays and an integrated Ethernet switch tray (the C-GbE Interconnect Switch). The two patch

panel options allow all Ethernet network signals to pass through to third-party LAN devices, thus

giving customers flexibility in choosing their own switches. The C-GbE Interconnect Switch includes

redundant managed layer 2 Ethernet switches that provides up to a 40-to-1 reduction in network

cables at the back of the BL e-Class enclosure. This cable reduction significantly reduces the time

required to deploy, manage, and service ProLiant BL e-Class systems.

This white paper describes the e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch. The C-GbE Interconnect Switch is

intended for applications that require 100 megabits per second (Mb/s) Fast Ethernet NIC

consolidation to 10/100/1000T Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. For information on the patch panel pass

through options, please see the ProLiant BL e-Class System Overview and Planning

white paper.

e-Class network routing

The ProLiant BL e-Class server enclosure supports twenty BL10e series server blades, each with two

NC3163 Fast Ethernet Embedded 10/100 Wake On LAN (WOL) network controllers enabled with

Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE). Therefore, each server blade enclosure can have up to 40

network adapters. The signals from these 40 network adapters are routed from the servers via the

passive centerwall assembly to an interconnect tray. Each e-Class server blade enclosure requires an

interconnect tray. The interconnect tray slides into the rear of the server blade enclosure providing the

Ethernet network connectors (Figure 1).

Available at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/e-class/documentation-g2.html.