® IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch IBM Redbooks Product Guide The IBM Flex System™ Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch provides unmatched scalability, performance, convergence, and network virtualization, while also delivering innovations to help address a number of networking concerns today and providing capabilities that will help you prepare for the future.
Part number information The CN4093 switch is initially licensed for fourteen 10 GbE internal ports, two external 10 GbE SFP+ ports, and six external Omni Ports enabled. Further ports can be enabled, including fourteen additional internal ports and two external 40 GbE QSFP+ uplink ports with Upgrade 1, and fourteen additional internal ports and six additional external Omni Ports with the Upgrade 2 license options.
The base switch and upgrades are as follows: 00D5823 is the part number for the physical device, which comes with 14 internal 10 GbE ports enabled (one to each node bay), two external 10 GbE SFP+ ports enabled to connect to a top-of-rack switch or other devices, and six Omni Ports enabled to connect to either Ethernet or Fibre Channel networking infrastructure, depending on the SFP+ cable or transceiver used.
Supported transceivers and cables Table 3 lists the supported cables and transceivers. Table 3.
With the flexibility of the CN4093 switch, clients can take advantage of the technologies that they require for multiple environments: For 1 GbE links (supported on external SFP+ ports 1 and 2 only), you can use 1 GbE SFP transceivers plus RJ-45 cables or LC-to-LC fiber cables, depending on the transceiver. For 10 GbE (supported on external SFP+ ports and Omni Ports), you can use direct-attached cables (DAC, also known as Twinax), which come in lengths between 1 m and 5 m.
Increased network performance With the growth of virtualization and the evolution of cloud, many of today’s applications require low latency and high bandwidth performance. The CN4093 is the embedded 10 GbE switch for a server chassis to support sub-microsecond latency and up to 1.28 Tbps, while also delivering full line rate performance on Ethernet ports, making it ideal for managing dynamic workloads across the network.
Integrate network management A key challenge is the management of a discrete network environment. The CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch is tightly integrated and managed through the IBM Flex System Manager. The switch also supports a command-line interface (CLI) for integration into existing scripting and automation. Network management can be simplified by using port profiles, topology views, and virtualization management.
Scalability and performance 40 Gb Ethernet ports for extreme uplink bandwidth and performance Fixed-speed external 10 Gb Ethernet ports to leverage 10 Gb core infrastructure Non-blocking architecture with wire-speed forwarding of traffic and aggregated throughput of 1.28 Tbps on Ethernet ports Media access control (MAC) address learning: automatic update, support for up to 128,000 MAC addresses Up to 128 IP interfaces per switch Static and LACP (IEEE 802.
Security VLAN-based, MAC-based, and IP-based access control lists (ACLs) 802.1x port-based authentication Multiple user IDs and passwords User access control Radius, TACACS+, and LDAP authentication and authorization Quality of Service (QoS) Support for IEEE 802.
Virtualization Virtual NICs (vNICs) Ethernet, iSCSI, or FCoE traffic is supported on vNICs 802.1Qbg Edge Virtual Bridging (EVB) is an emerging IEEE standard for allowing networks to become virtual machine (VM)-aware. Virtual Ethernet Bridging (VEB) and Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) are mechanisms for switching between VMs on the same hypervisor.
Manageability Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP V1, V2 and V3) HTTP browser GUI Telnet interface for CLI SSH Secure FTP (sFTP) Service Location Protocol (SLP) Serial interface for CLI Scriptable CLI Firmware image update (TFTP and FTP) Network Time Protocol (NTP) for switch clock synchronization Monitoring Switch LEDs for external port status and switch module status indication Remote Monitoring (RMON) agent to collect statistics and proactively mo
Standards supported The CN4058 switch supports the following standards: IEEE 802.1AB Data Center Bridging Capability Exchange Protocol (DCBX) IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) IEEE 802.1p Class of Service (CoS) prioritization IEEE 802.1s Multiple STP (MSTP) IEEE 802.1Q Tagged VLAN (frame tagging on all ports when VLANs are enabled) IEEE 802.1Qbg Edge Virtual Bridging IEEE 802.1Qbb Priority-Based Flow Control (PFC) IEEE 802.
The connections between the adapters installed in the compute nodes to the switch bays in the chassis are shown diagrammatically in the following figure. The figure shows both half-wide servers, such as the x240 with two adapters, and full-wide servers, such as the p460 with four adapters. Figure 3. Logical layout of the interconnects between I/O adapters and I/O modules The CN4093 switch can be installed in bays 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Enterprise chassis.
The following table shows the connections between adapters installed in the compute nodes to the switch bays in the chassis. Table 4.
The following table lists the I/O adapters supported by the CN4093 switch. Table 5.
Connectors and LEDs Figure 5 shows the front panel of the IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch. Figure 5. Front panel of the IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch The following components are located on the front panel: LEDs that display the status of the switch module and the network: The OK LED indicates that the switch module has passed the power-on self-test (POST) with no critical faults and is operational.
Network cabling requirements The network cables that can be used with the CN4093 switch are shown in the following table. Table 6. CN4093 network cabling requirements Transceiver Standard Cable Connector IBM QSFP+ 40GBASE-SR Transceiver (49Y7884) 40GBASE-SR4 10 m or 30 m IBM MTP fiber optics cables (see Table 3) MTP Direct attach cable 40GBASE-CR4 1 m or 3 m QSFP+ to QSFP+ DACs (see Table 3) QSFP+ IBM SFP+ SR Transceiver (46C3447) 10GBASE-SR 850 nm multimode fiber cable (50 µ or 62.
Physical specifications These are the approximate dimensions and weight of the switch: Height: 30 mm (1.2 in.) Width: 401 mm (15.8 in.) Depth: 317 mm (12.5 in.) Weight: 3.7 kg (8.1 lb) Shipping dimensions and weight (approximate): Height: 114 mm (4.5 in.) Width: 508 mm (20.0 in.) Depth: 432 mm (17.0 in.) Weight: 4.1 kg (9.1 lb) Regulatory compliance The switches conform to the following standards: United States FCC 47 CFR Part 15, Subpart B, ANSI C63.
In the Full Fabric mode, the CN4093 converged switch has 10 GbE uplinks to the G8264 top-of-rack switch for external LAN connectivity, and is connected to the integrated IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node with native FCoE interface via internal 10 GbE links, as shown in the following figure. Figure 6. CN4093 Virtual Fabric in the Full Fabric mode (end-to-end FCoE) The solution components used in the scenario depicted in Figure 6 are listed in Table 7. Table 7.
CN4093 FCoE Virtual Fabric in the NPV Gateway mode As part of an IBM FCoE solution, the IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch can operate as an integrated FC Forwarder in the NPV Gateway mode, providing the capability to connect to the external IBM B-type, Brocade, or Cisco MDS storage networks, as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. Figure 7.
Figure 8.
The solution components used in the scenarios depicted in Figure 7 and Figure 8 are listed in Table 8 and Table 9 respectively. Table 8.
Table 9.
Related publications For more information see the following IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch product publications, available from the IBM Flex System Information Center: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/flexsys/information/index.jsp Installation Guide Application Guide Command Reference These are other useful references: IBM US Announcement Letter for the CN4093 http://ibm.
Notices This information was developed for products and services offered in the U.S.A. IBM may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in other countries. Consult your local IBM representative for information on the products and services currently available in your area. Any reference to an IBM product, program, or service is not intended to state or imply that only that IBM product, program, or service may be used.
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