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

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ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch Overview

white paper

Abstract.............................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3

e-Class network routing ........................................................................................................................ 3

C-GbE Interconnect Switch.................................................................................................................... 4

Same technology, different form factor................................................................................................... 5

Interconnect switch architecture ............................................................................................................. 5

Internal ports ................................................................................................................................... 6

External ports .................................................................................................................................. 7

Crosslink ports................................................................................................................................. 7

Maximizing network cable reduction ..................................................................................................... 7

Enclosure linking.............................................................................................................................. 8

Network load balancing....................................................................................................................... 9

Switch management............................................................................................................................. 9

Rapid deployment, back-up, and restore........................................................................................... 10

IP addressing................................................................................................................................. 11

Web browser-based interface.......................................................................................................... 11

Menu-driven console and scriptable command line interfaces.............................................................. 12

SNMP and remote monitoring ......................................................................................................... 12

Switch security............................................................................................................................... 13

Diagnostics ................................................................................................................................... 13

Virtual LAN ................................................................................................................................... 14

Spanning tree................................................................................................................................ 14

EtherChannel compatible link aggregation........................................................................................14

Internet group management protocol................................................................................................ 14

Data storm prevention..................................................................................................................... 15

Quality of service........................................................................................................................... 15

Enterprise-class performance............................................................................................................... 15

Summary of content (19 pages)

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ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch Overview white paper Abstract.............................................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3 e-Class network routing ...................................................................................................................
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ProLiant Network Adapter Teaming...................................................................................................... 15 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 16 Appendix: Summary of features of the ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch ................................ 16 Switch performance.......................................................................................
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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 industrystandard 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.
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Figure 1. ProLiant BL e-Class network routing C-GbE Interconnect Switch The C-GbE Interconnect Switch is a ProLiant BL e-Class interconnect tray option that uses a pair of redundant, non-blocking, managed layer 2 Ethernet switches (Figure 2). The C-GbE Interconnect Switch consolidates 40 Ethernet NICs from the server blades into one to four external 10/100/1000T Gigabit Ethernet ports at the rear of the server blade enclosure.
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Same technology, different form factor In a typical server network configuration designed with redundancy, two or more network interface controller (NIC) ports are used per server. These NIC ports are routed to two separate access switches. One or more connections are commonly made between the switches for added availability. The switches are used to collect NIC signals from the servers for aggregation to the network backbone via one or more uplinks.
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• Server blade NIC-to-interconnect switch port or connection • Uplink port and uplink port connection and cable • Interconnect switch cross-link port or connection • Power and fan failure Users can independently disable or enable the switch ports as desired. Auto-MDI/MDIX with autonegotiation of speed and duplex mode is supported.
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(labeled Switch A and Switch B). Each switch directly connects to one of the two NC3163 NICs on each ProLiant BL10e series server blade (labeled as NIC). One additional 10/100 Mb/s Fast Ethernet internal port connects the Integrated Administrator (IA) to the switches for IA to switch Ethernet communication.
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Enclosure linking Another means to achieve network cable reduction includes linking of an e-Class GbE Interconnect Switch with other ProLiant BL e-Class and even p-Class interconnect switches from different server blade enclosures. This is ideal for customers with multiple blade enclosures within a rack. It also allows the network administrator to define the desired level of network blocking or oversubscription.
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Network load balancing ProLiant BL systems configured with the interconnect switch support three network load balancing solutions. Options exist for providing this functionality integrated within or exterior to the server blade enclosure. For load balancing within the server blade enclosure, the F5 Network BIG-IP Blade Controller (BIG-IP) may be used.
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Figure 6.
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The C-GbE Interconnect Switch supports trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) allowing a copy of each switch configuration file to be saved and downloaded either to the original switch or to one or more different switches. This provides a method to rapidly deploy multiple systems with similar configurations and to provide backup and restore capabilities. Configuration settings can be modified through the user interfaces or directly within the configuration file.
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Menu-driven console and scriptable command line interfaces The menu-driven console and the command line interfaces provide the same configuration options as the BBI, plus the added benefits of an out-of-band connection and CLI scripting (Figure 8). There are three methods of accessing these interfaces: • Locally via the RS-232 console port on the interconnect switch tray either directly to either switch or while logged into the Integrated Administrator.
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Switch security The interconnect switch uses a layer 2 access control list or filtering database to segment the network, control communications between segments, and provide intrusion control. Each switch allows manual entry of specific media access control (MAC) addresses to be filtered from the network. Filtering of both unicast and multicast traffic is possible. The maximum number of MAC addresses learned on a per port basis may further be restricted.
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The interconnect switch provides many additional serviceability and diagnostic features including: • Port mirroring with the ability to mirror desired type of frames (egress, ingress, or both. • Power on self test (POST) at boot for hardware verification. • Monitoring screens via the user interfaces for port utilization, data packets received/transmitted, error packets, packet size, trunk utilization, SNMP data, etc.
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Data storm prevention The interconnect switch permits configurable thresholds (in packets per second) to prevent three types of packet storms: broadcast, multicast, and destination address unknown. If the threshold is exceeded, any additional packets received would be dropped. Quality of service Support for quality of service (QoS) IEEE 802.1p on the interconnect switch allows switch administrators to set priority levels on each switch for forwarding packets.
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Conclusion The ProLiant e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch is available as one of three interconnect tray options for the ProLiant BL e-Class system. The C-GbE Interconnect Switch tray option includes a pair of fully redundant, managed layer 2 Ethernet switches that consolidate up to forty 10/100 Mbps network adapters to one to four 10/100/100T Gigabit Ethernet uplinks.
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Switch deployment and configuration • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Supports any combination of ProLiant BL e-Class server blades Default pre-configuration for immediate plug-in operation in the server blade enclosure Communicate to any and all server blade network adapters from any Ethernet external port Manage both switches, access all iLO ports, and execute PXE from any external Ethernet port Web-based interface accessible from any switch Ethernet port Menu driven console interface a
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Switch security • • • • • • • Password protected multi-level user accounts supported on all management interfaces Configurable user interface idle time-out period Ability to disable web-based and Telnet access to the switch user interfaces 256 Port-based IEEE 802.
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For more information For additional information, refer to the resources detailed below. Resource description Web address ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect switch home page http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/e-class/interconnectswitch.html ProLiant BL e-Class System Overview and Planning white paper http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/e-class/documentationg2.