Information About The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender - Cisco Nexus 6000 Series Configuration Manual

Configuring the Fabric Extender

Information About the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender

Information About the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender

The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender, also known as FEX, is a highly scalable and flexible server
networking solution that works with Cisco Nexus Series devices to provide high-density, low-cost connectivity
for server aggregation. Scaling across 1-Gigabit Ethernet, 10-Gigabit Ethernet, unified fabric, rack, and blade
server environments, the Fabric Extender is designed to simplify data center architecture and operations.
The Fabric Extender integrates with its parent switch, which is a Cisco Nexus Series device, to allow automatic
provisioning and configuration taken from the settings on the parent device. This integration allows large
numbers of servers and hosts to be supported by using the same feature set as the parent device, including
security and quality-of-service (QoS) configuration parameters, with a single management domain. The Fabric
Extender and its parent switch enable a large multipath, loop-free, active-active data center topology without
the use of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
Figure 19: Single Management Domain
The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender forwards all traffic to its parent Cisco Nexus Series device
over 10-Gigabit Ethernet fabric uplinks, which allows all traffic to be inspected by policies established on the
Cisco Nexus Series device.
No software is included with the Fabric Extender. The software is automatically downloaded and upgraded
from its parent device.
Cisco Nexus 6000 Series NX-OS Layer 2 Switching Configuration Guide, Release 7.x
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