Technical information

59 EqualLogic Configuration Guide | Version 15.2 | August 2014
11 Blade server chassis integration
Integrating the PowerEdge M1000e Blade Server Solution (or any third party blade chassis implementation)
requires additional SAN design considerations. Each M1000e can support up to three separate networking
“fabrics” that interconnect ports on each blade server to a pair of blade I/O modules within each chassis
fabric through an intervening chassis midplane interface. Each fabric is associated with different interfaces
on a given blade server as described in Table 17. Each blade server has a “LAN on Motherboard” capability
that is mapped to the I/O modules located in the Fabric A I/O modules slots on the M1000e chassis and
only supports 1Gb or 10Gb Ethernet networking depending on the blade server model. In addition, each
blade server has two “mezzanine” sockets for adding additional networking options such as 1Gb or 10Gb
Ethernet, Infiniband, or Fibre Channel cards. These mezzanine cards are mapped to either the Fabric B or
the Fabric C I/O modules.
Figure 20 illustrates the layout of the three fabric I/O modules located on the back of the M1000e chassis.
Table 17 M1000e fabric mapping
LOM/MLOM
Mezzanine B
Mezzanine C
Fabric
A
B
C
Fabric “A”
Fabric “C”
Fabric “B”
Fabric “C”
Fabric “A”
Fabric “B”
Figure 20 Blade I/O modules and M1000e Chassis