As interconnect technologies evolved over the years to address changing needs, it became standard practice in data centers to utilize at least two I/O fabrics – typically Ethernet to move IP traffic and Fibre Channel for storage payloads. Each has its own distinct history and characteristics.

However, today’s high-density servers aren’t equipped to handle all of these interconnects, particularly in clustering environments where multiple LAN and Fibre Channel connections may be required. A virtualized server may require as many as six Gigabit Ethernet NICs, two Fibre Channel adapters and eight or more cables to connect it the network.

“These challenges are the driving force behind the unified I/O fabric concept,” said Vince Conroy, CTO, FusionStorm. “A single, unified I/O fabric seamlessly consolidates multiple legacy interconnects to create a scalable, high-performance, fault-tolerant infrastructure.”

Building data centers based on a unified fabric eliminates the need for parallel storage and computational networks, reducing the number of server interfaces and significantly reducing the cabling and switching infrastructure required. A unified fabric also enables organizations to move to higher-density server form factors, increasing the IT workload output of each data center. Combined with virtualization, this new technology will help customers to build more efficient and sustainable data centers, maximizing IT workload for each facility and saving more power overall than the network generally consumes.

“With a unified fabric, IT organizations can simplify cabling infrastructure, reduce the number of required adapters, lower costs, simplify management, and reduce power consumption and their carbon footprint,” said Conroy.

Cisco in the Lead

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series data center-class switch architecture is designed around a lossless unified fabric capable of simultaneously forwarding storage, Ethernet and IP traffic. Its unified fabric architecture combines Ethernet and storage capabilities into a single platform, designed to provide all servers with access to all network and storage resources. This enables data center consolidation and virtualization. The fabric scales performance linearly with each fabric module and is logically partitioned for efficient unicast and multicast traffic.

The Nexus 7000 is a highly scalable modular platform that delivers up to 15 terabits per second of switching capacity in a single chassis, supporting up to 512 10Gbps Ethernet connections. An upgrade patch will support future delivery of 40Gbps and 100Gbps Ethernet.

“The Nexus 7000 is designed specifically for the data center with improved airflow, integrated cable management, and a resilient platform architecture,” Conroy said. “The data plane is fully distributed and, when coupled with the Cisco NX-OS operating system, designed to enable zero service-disruption upgrades on production systems. This provides a seamless systems design that reduces administrative tasks and simplifies complex systems operations.”

Cisco recently extended the Nexus family with the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, which is designed to help organizations transition to a unified fabric at their own pace. It also meets stringent customer requirements for operational continuity, transport flexibility and scalability. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series delivers line-rate, low-latency, 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching, as well as the industry's first standards-based, I/O consolidation solution via support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Data Center Ethernet and virtualization technologies.

Investment Protection

With its support for FCoE, the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series consolidates LAN, Fibre Channel and iSCSI-based SANs and server cluster traffic onto a 10 Gigabit Ethernet-based unified fabric. The Cisco Nexus 5000 also provides virtual machine optimized services, allowing IT organizations to dynamically respond to changing business demands through rapid provisioning of application and infrastructure services from shared pools of consolidated compute, storage and network resources.

“The Cisco Nexus 5000 is designed for data center consolidation with investment protection,” said Conroy. “It is optimized for the virtualized data center through consistent provisioning across virtual machines and physical servers.”

The Cisco Nexus 5000 platform can connect to either Cisco Nexus 7000 or Cisco Catalyst 6500 in the aggregation/core layers of the data center. With native Fibre Channel interfaces, the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series can also connect to SAN fabrics built with the Cisco MDS 9000 platform. This helps enable customers to deploy the Cisco Nexus 5000 and FCoE today for I/O consolidation in the access layer, while protecting their technology investments in aggregation and core layers.

“As the data center transitions to a more services-centric model, the network plays a pivotal role in orchestrating virtual IT resources and scaling workloads,” Conroy said. “The Cisco Nexus family of switches supports the increasing I/O demands of multi-core processors and virtualized environments, while creating a dynamic, scalable environment ready to meet changing business demands.”