Installing Fabric Interconnects

The Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect is a top-of-rack switch that connects the LAN, SAN, and management to underlying physical compute servers for Ethernet and Fibre Channel access. Normally, a pair of Fabric Interconnects can be installed either in a single rack or distributed across two racks to provide rack and power redundancy. Fabric Interconnects can be installed at the bottom in case the network cabling is planned under the floor. All the components in a Fabric Interconnect come installed by default from the factory; only external components such as Ethernet modules, power supplies, and fans need to be connected.

Interconnect includes two redundant hot-swappable power supply units. It is recommended that the power supply in the rack come from two different energy sources and installed with a redundant power distribution unit (PDU). It requires a maximum of 750 Watts of power.

Interconnect includes four redundant hot-swappable fans to provide the most efficient front-to-rear cooling design and is designed to work in hot aisle/cold aisle environments. It dissipates approximately 2500 BTU/hour, and adequate cooling should be available in the data center for getting better performance.

For detailed information on power, cooling, physical, and environmental specifications, check the data sheet.

UCS FI 6300 series data sheet:
http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-b-series-blade-servers/6332-specsheet.pdf
UCS FI 6200 series data sheet:
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-6200-series-fabric-interconnects/data_sheet_c78-675245.pdf

Fabric Interconnects provide various options to connect with networks and servers. The 6300 Fabric Interconnect series can provide 10/40 Gig connectivity, while the FI 6200 series can provide 1/10 Gig to the upstream network.

The third-generation FI 6332 has 32x40 Gig fixed ports. Ports 1-12 and 15-26 can be configured as 40 Gig QSFP+ ports or as 4x10 Gig SFP+ breakout ports, while ports 13 and 14 can be configured as 40 Gig or 1/10 Gig with QSA adapters but can't be configured with 10 Gig SFP+ breakout cables. The last six ports, 27-32, are dedicated for 40 Gig upstream switch connectivity.

The third-generation FI 6332-16UP can be deployed where native Fibre Channel connectivity is essential. The first 16 unified ports, 1-16, can be configured as 1/10 Gig SFP+ Ethernet ports or 4/8/16 Gig Fibre Channel ports. Ports 17-34 can be configured as 40 Gig QSFP+ ports or 4x10 Gig SFP+ breakout ports. The last six ports, 35-40, are dedicated to 40 Gig upstream switch connectivity.

The second-generation FI 6248UP has 32x10 Gig fixed unified ports and one expansion module to provide an additional 16 unified ports. All unified ports can be configured as either 1/10 Gig Ethernet or 1/2/4/8 Gig Fibre Channel.

The second-generation FI 6296UP has 48x10 Gig fixed unified ports and three expansion modules to provide an additional 48 unified ports. All unified ports can be configured as either 1/10 Gig Ethernet or 1/2/4/8 Gig Fibre Channel.