Gbe2 Interconnect Switches; Redundant Crosslinks; Redundant Paths To Servers - HP ProLiant BL p-Class GbE2 User Manual

GbE2 Interconnect Switches

Two GbE2 Interconnect Switches in the ProLiant BL p-Class server blade enclosure provide
switch redundancy and redundant paths to the network ports on the server blades. Each GbE2
Interconnect Switch has six external Gigabit Ethernet ports and direct connections to two of
the four network controllers per server blade slot. The four network controllers per server
blade slot are NIC1, NIC2, NIC3, and Integrated Lights-Out (iLO).
Each pair of GbE2 Interconnect Switches consolidates up to thirty-two 10/100/1000 Ethernet
controllers on eight servers into one-to-eight Gigabit ports (on the back of the system) plus
four additional Gigabit Ethernet ports (on the front of the GbE2 Interconnect Switches). This
design eliminates up to 31 network cables from the back of the server blade enclosure.
Refer to the server Setup and Installation Guide for more information about Integrated
Lights-Out (iLO) management.

Redundant Crosslinks

The two GbE2 Interconnect Switches are connected through redundant 10/100/1000
crosslinks. These two crosslinks provide an aggregate throughput of 2 Gb/s for traffic
between the GbE2 Interconnect Switches.

Redundant Paths to Servers

The three 10/100/1000 NIC ports and the one 10/100 iLO controller per server blade slot are
routed through the enclosure backplane to different GbE2 Interconnect Switches. NIC1 and
NIC2 are routed to Switch A. NIC 3 and iLO are routed to Switch B. This configuration
provides redundant paths to each server.
On a heavily used system, using a single uplink port for all 24 NICs and 8 iLOs can cause a
traffic bottleneck. For optimum performance, HP recommends that at least one to all four
uplink ports per GbE2 Interconnect Switch be used.
The two front panel 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T ports per GbE2 Interconnect Switch
may also be used for additional uplink bandwidth to the network.
HP ProLiant BL p-Class GbE2 Interconnect Switch User Guide
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Introduction
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