HP Virtual Connect for the Cisco Network Administrator

HP Virtual Connect for Cisco Network Administrators (version 4.x)
Document Number: C01386629 Date: January 2014
page 11
c-Class Cabling Layout
The c-Class server blades use various mezzanine cards to connect to different network
fabrics through the interconnect bays at the rear of the enclosure. These fabrics include
Ethernet, Fiber Channel, Infiniband, etc. The mezzanine cards are inserted in the mezzanine
slots in the blade server. These mezzanine slots (M1, M2, & M3 in Figure 2 below) are
basically PCI-e expansion slots equivalent to those found in non-bladed hardware such as
tower and rack-mounted servers. The connections between the multiple types of mezzanine
cards on the server blades are hard-wired through the NonStop signal midplane to specific
interconnect bays at the rear of the enclosure (see Figure 2).
All c-Class blade servers have at least two onboard (LOM) NIC ports. These LOM ports, two
for half- height servers (NIC 1 & NIC 2) and four for full-height servers (NIC 1 thru NIC4),
are connected to interconnect bays 1 & 2 (see Figure 2). Since Ethernet LOM ports are the
only type network fabric that are ever connected to interconnect bays 1 & 2, the only type of
interconnect module that can be used in bays 1 & 2 are Ethernet modules (switches, pass-
through, or Virtual Connect).
For half-height servers, mezzanine slot 1 (M1) provides up to two Ethernet ports connected
to interconnect bays 3 & 4. Mezzanine slot 2 (M2) provides up to four Ethernet ports
connected to interconnect bays 5 thru 8. The maximum configuration for a half-height server,
if using all Ethernet, is a total of eight NICs where each NIC port is connected to one of the
eight interconnect bays.
For full-height servers, mezzanine slot 1 (M1) provides up to four Ethernet ports connected to
interconnect bays 3 & 4. Mezzanine slot 2 (M2) provides up to four Ethernet ports
connected to interconnect bays 5 thru 8. Mezzanine slot 3 (M3) also provides up to four
Ethernet ports which are also connected to interconnect bays 5 thru 8. The maximum
configuration for a full-height server, if using all Ethernet, is a total of 16 NICs, where two
NIC ports are connected to each of the eight interconnect bays.
Mezzanine slots may be populated with I/O technologies other than Ethernet (such as Fibre
Channel or InfiniBand), but this paper focuses primarily on Ethernet.
C7000 Backplane Wiring
Figure 4. Overview of c7000 midplane wiring – Half height modules
Half Height Modules