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Cisco Nexus B22 Fabric Extender for Flex System

The Cisco Nexus B22 Fabric Extender for Flex System provides a transparent fabric extension from a Cisco Nexus 5000 or 6000 Series Switch to the compute nodes that are installed in the Flex System chassis.

When connected to a Cisco Nexus 5000 or 6000 Series Switch, the B22 fabric extender behaves like a remote line card and forwards all traffic to the Cisco Switch over its eight 10 Gb Ethernet uplinks. The fabric extender's 10 Gb Ethernet downlinks to each compute node can work with Ethernet adapters and converged network adapters (CNA), so you can use Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), or Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) connections. In addition, the B22 fabric extender supports a single point of management for switching traffic using the established policies of the upstream Cisco Nexus Switch.

The B22 fabric extender supports the use of copper Twinax cable for low-cost uplink connections of up to 10 meters and the Cisco Fabric Extender Transceiver (FET-10G) for longer connections of up to 100 meters. Standard 10 Gbps optics such as short reach (SR), long reach (LR), and extended reach (ER) are also supported.

Additional capabilities and benefits of the Cisco Nexus B22 fabric extender include the following:

  • Highly scalable: The B22 fabric extender works with the Cisco Nexus 5000 or 6000 series switch to form a distributed modular system. This distributed modular system creates a very scalable server-access environment with no reliance on Spanning Tree Protocol and with consistent features and architectures between the compute nodes and other rack servers.
  • Simplified operations: The availability of a single point of management and policy enforcement using the upstream Cisco Nexus 5000 or 6000 Series Switches can ease the commissioning and decommissioning of compute nodes through zero-touch installation and automatic configuration of fabric extenders.
  • Cost effective: Consolidation, reduced cabling, investment protection through feature inheritance from the connected switch, and the capability to add functions without the need for a major equipment upgrade of server-attached infrastructure can all contribute to reduced operating expenses and capital expenditures.

The following documentation is available for the Cisco B22 fabric extender: