Hardware components

The device has a modular and scalable mechanical construction that allows a wide range of flexibility in installation, fabric design, and maintenance. The device can be mounted with the cables facing either the front or the rear of the equipment rack, and consists of the following:

  • Up to eight slots for hot-swappable port blade assemblies, providing up to 384 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports.
  • Two half-size slots for control processor (CP) blades:
    • A single active CP blade can control all the ports in the device.
    • The standby CP blade assumes control of the device if the active CP blade fails.
  • Two slots for core routing (CR) blades:
    • CR blade interconnects all port blades.
    • Up to 32 4x32-Gbps QSFP (ICL) ports.
    • ICL ports allow interconnection with neighboring chassis
    • Both CR blades are active.
  • Up to four slots for modular, hot-swappable 34-port SX6 extension blades. Blades provide 16 32– Gbps Fibre Channel (FC) ports supporting 8, 16, and 32 Gbps or 16 16-Gbps FC ports supporting 4, 8, and 16 Gbps; 16 GbE ports supporting 1 or 10 Gbps; and 2 GbE ports supporting 40 Gbps. Extension blades enable long-distance communication over an existing IP infrastructure.
  • Modular, hot-swappable field-replaceable units (FRUs):
    • Three fan assemblies, available with nonport-side intake (NPI) or nonport-side exhaust (NPE) airflow.
    • Up to four power supply assemblies, available with nonport-side intake (NPI) or nonport-side exhaust (NPE) airflow. The power supplies are approved for 100–120 VAC and 200–240 VAC.
      • At 100–120 VAC (nominal): Four power supply assemblies are required for high availability. Refer to the "Power requirements" section in the Product specifications for specific high availability–requirements.
      • 200–240 VAC (nominal) is recommended for efficiency. Depending on quantity ordered, three or four power supply assemblies are provided. Refer to the "Power requirements" section in the Product specifications for specific high-availability requirements.
      • Redundant AC primary power connections ensure high availability. Each power supply assembly has its own connector, so four is the number of primary power connections for optimum efficiency and redundancy.
    • Two World Wide Name (WWN) cards located on the nonport side of the device behind the WWN card bezel.
    • Blades use small form-factor pluggable (SFP+ and QSFP+) optical transceivers.
      • The 10-Gbps speed must be manually set and requires special 10-Gbps FC SFP+ transceivers.
      • The 32-Gbps SFP+ transceivers support speeds of 8, 16, and 32 Gbps.
      • The 16-Gbps SFP+ transceivers support speeds of 4, 8, and 16 Gbps.
      • The 4x32-Gbps QSFP+ transceivers on the core routing blades provide four 32–Gbps inter-chassis links (ICL) clustered in a single quad connector and cable.
      • The 4x16-Gbps QSFP+ transceivers on the core routing blades provide four 16–Gbps inter-chassis links (ICL) clustered in a single quad connector and cable).
  • Chassis door. This door must be installed to meet EMI compliance certification.
  • A cable management comb. These are installed on the chassis below the blades for cable management.