Cisco Nexus 7000 F2-Series Enhanced 48-Port Fiber 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module
Product Overview
The Cisco Nexus® 7000 Enhanced F2-Series 48-Port Fiber 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module (referred to as the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module in this document) offers outstanding flexibility and wire-rate performance on each port. The module enables the deployment of high-density, low-latency, scalable data center architecture.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches provide the foundation for the Cisco® Unified Fabric. They are a modular data center-class product line designed for highly scalable 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks. The fabric architecture scales beyond 15 terabits per second (Tbps), designed to support future 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. To meet the requirements of the most mission-critical network environments, the switches deliver continuous system operations and virtualized services.
Features and Benefits
The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module (Figure 1) is a low-latency, high-performance, high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet module designed for mission-critical data center networks. Up to 768 wire-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports are supported in a single system through the use of the Cisco Nexus 7000 18-Slot Switch chassis, providing the highest-density of wire-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports on the market.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches is powered by the proven Cisco NX-OS Software operating system, with enhanced features to deliver real-time system upgrades with exceptional manageability and serviceability. Its innovative unified fabric design is purpose built to support consolidation of IP and storage networks on a single lossless Ethernet fabric.
The benefits of Cisco FabricPath include:
● Operation simplicity: Cisco FabricPath embeds an autodiscovery mechanism that does not require any additional platform configuration. By offering Layer 2 connectivity, this “VLAN anywhere” characteristic simplifies provisioning and offers workload flexibility across the network.
● High resiliency and performance: Because Cisco FabricPath is a Layer 2 routed protocol, it offers stability, scalability, and optimized resiliency along with network failure containment.
● Massively scalable fabric: By building a forwarding model on 16-way equal-cost multipath (ECMP), Cisco FabricPath helps prevent bandwidth bottlenecks and allows capacity to be added dynamically, without network disruption.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module can also be used in conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders
The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module is built with switch-on-chip (SoC) architecture, in which a single application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implements all the module functions, including ingress buffering, forwarding lookup operations, access control lists (ACLs), quality-of-service (QoS) tables, fabric interfaces, and virtual output queuing (VOQ). Each SoC manages four front-panel interfaces. This type of design increases performance while lowering the power and cooling requirements of the module.
Powered by the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2-Series SoC architecture, the module delivers 720 million packets per second (mpps) of distributed Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding and up to 480 Gbps of data throughput. A Cisco Nexus 7000 18-Slot Switch fully populated with the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module has the capability to deliver up to 11.5 billion packets per second and 15.4 terabits per second (Tbps) of switching performance, with a typical power consumption of about 7.5 watts (W) per port.
The module protects investments with standards-based 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) features, and virtual machine-awareness features that allow IT departments to consolidate networks based on their own unique requirements and timing. Each port can also be used at 1 Gigabit Ethernet speed, allowing IT departments to migrate to 10 Gigabit Ethernet according to the specific needs of their networks.
With the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module, FCoE can be deployed in director-class modular platforms for the access layer and core of converged networks. In addition to FCoE host and target support, the module provides virtual expansion (VE)-port support, allowing creation of FCoE Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) and enabling scalable, multihop FCoE topologies. The FCoE traffic in a Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch can be segmented using a dedicated storage virtual device context (VDC), providing isolation within the shared physical infrastructure. Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches FCoE converged networks can be transparently bridged to Cisco MDS 9500 Series Fibre Channel SANs with the Cisco MDS 10-Gbps 8-Port FCoE Module. This capability preserves existing and continued investments in Fibre Channel SANs and offers a single unified OS (Cisco NX-OS) and management platform (Cisco Data Center Network Manager [DCNM]) for both the LAN and the SAN.
The comprehensive feature set of the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module includes classic Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, with the comprehensive feature set offered by Cisco NX-OS: a modular multitasking and multithreaded operating system built with high availability, detailed fault management, resiliency, and nondisruptive serviceability at its foundation. This extremely comprehensive set of Layer 2 and Layer 3 functions makes this module excellent for data center networks, in which density, performance, and continuous system operation are critical.
Besides the classic Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding capability, the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module delivers Cisco FabricPath technology based on IETF TRILL. Cisco FabricPath consists of a set of multipath Ethernet technologies, combining the reliability and scalability benefits of Layer 3 routing with the flexibility and “plug-and-play” aspects of Layer 2 Ethernet networks.
With Cisco FabricPath, organizations can now build resilient, flexible, and when needed, massively scalable Layer 2 networks, no longer relying on Spanning Tree Protocol and its inherent bisectional bandwidth limitations. Cisco FabricPath protects enterprises’ investments by allowing existing Ethernet infrastructure to be connected to a Cisco FabricPath network. Enhanced virtual PortChannel (vPC+) technology is part of Cisco FabricPath and allows the redundant interconnection of classic Spanning Tree Protocol-based Layer 2 environments.
The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders comprise a category of data center products that provide a server-access platform that scales across a multitude of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, unified fabric, rack, and blade server environments. The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders are designed to simplify data center architecture and operations by dramatically reducing the points of management and by meeting the business and application needs of a data center. Working in conjunction with Cisco Nexus switches, the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders offer a cost-effective and efficient way to support today’s Gigabit Ethernet environments while allowing easy migration to 10 Gigabit Ethernet, virtual machine-aware Cisco unified fabric technologies.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module also delivers integrated FCoE, greatly simplifying the network infrastructure and reducing costs by enabling the deployment of unified data center fabrics to consolidate data center traffic onto a single, general-purpose, high-performance, highly available network. With the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module, FCoE can be deployed in director-class modular platforms for the access layer and core of converged networks. In addition to FCoE host and target support, the module provides VE-port support, allowing creation of FCoE ISLs and enabling scalable, multihop FCoE topologies.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module offers exceptional security with integrated hardware support for Cisco TrustSec® technology, including line-rate data confidentiality, data integrity, and ACL processing for security group tags (SGTs). Data confidentiality and integrity conforming to the IEEE MAC security standard (IEEE 802.1AE MACsec) is supported on a subset of ports: more specifically, ports 41 to 48 (the leftmost eight ports) on the module support the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher, using a 128-bit key[1]. New security ACLs are enhanced through hardware support for Cisco metadata headers capable of carrying SGTs. Security group ACLs (SGACLs) use SGT information to provide hardware-based enforcement of security policies, removing dependencies on IP addresses, thus improving scalability and simplifying manageability.
Product Specifications
Item | Specifications |
System | |
Product compatibility | Supported on Cisco Nexus 7000 4-, 9- 10-, and 18-Slot Switch chassis. |
Software compatibility | Cisco NX-OS Software Release 6.1.2 or later (minimum requirement) |
Front-panel LEDs | ● Status: Green (operational), red (faulty), or orange (module booting) ● Link: Green (port enabled and connected), orange (port disabled), off (port enabled and not connected), or blinking green and orange in conjunction with ID LED blue (port flagged for identification; beacon) ● ID: Blue (operator has flagged this card for identification; beacon) or off (module not flagged) |
Programming interfaces | ● XML ● Scriptable command-line interface (CLI) ● Cisco DCNM GUI |
Physical Interfaces | |
Connectivity | 48 ports of 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (SFP or SFP+ pluggable optic modules) |
Maximum port density | ● 768 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet for 18-slot chassis ● 384 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet for 10-slot chassis ● 336 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet for 9-slot chassis ● 96 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet for 4-slot chassis |
Queues per port | Configurable template-based queuing modes: ● Ingress (4q1t and 2q1t) ● Egress (1p3q1t, 2p2q1t, and 3p1q1t) |
VOQ buffer | 72 MB per module |
Scheduler | Deficit-Weighted Round-Robin (DWRR) |
Jumbo frame support for bridged and routed packets | Up to 9216 bytes |
SoC | |
Performance | 720-mpps Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding capacity for both IPv4 and IPv6 packets |
MAC address entries | 16,384 per SoC, and up to 196,608 per module (depending on VLAN allocation) |
VLAN | 4096 simultaneous VLANs per VDC |
IPv4 entries | 32,768 |
IPv6 entries | 16,384 |
Adjacency entries | 16,384 |
ACLs | 16,384 per SoC, and up to 196,608 per module (depending on ACL type and interface configuration) |
FCoE features | ● T11 VF-, VN-, and VE-port for multihop FCoE ● T11 FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) ● Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) |
Advanced FCoE features | ● Virtual SANs (VSANs) ● Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR) ● PortChannels (up to 16 links) ● SAN trunking ● Storage VDC |
Policers | 1024 per SoC |
Control-Plane Policing (CPP) | |
Feature | Benefit |
Support for 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet | Each port can be used at 1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet speed, allowing IT departments to migrate to 10 Gigabit Ethernet based on the unique requirements of their networks. |
Comprehensive Layer 2 and Layer 3 capabilities | The comprehensive set of Layer 2 and Layer 3 functions makes this module excellent for data center networks. |
VDC | The Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module’s VDC feature helps enable the virtualization of a single physical device in one or more logical devices. Each provisioned logical device is configured and managed as if it were a separate physical device[2]. |
Cisco FabricPath technology based on IETF TRILL | Cisco FabricPath uses routing principles in the data plane and control plane to bring reliability and scalability to transparent bridging while maintaining flexibility and ease of use. |
Support for Cisco Nexus 2000 Series | The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders are designed to simplify data center architecture and operations by dramatically reducing the number of points of management. |
FCoE support | I/O consolidation at the access layer and core of the network reduces the physical infrastructure that needs to be acquired, managed, and maintained. |
IEEE 802.1AE MACsec | Ports 41 to 48 (the leftmost 8 ports) on the module support the AES cipher, using a 128-bit key1. |
Well suited for deployment in latency-sensitive environments | Port-to-port latency is less than 6 microseconds, enabling support for latency-sensitive applications. |
Interface flexibility with Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) and Enhanced SFP (SFP+) support | Interface flexibility allows fulfillment of any Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet deployment needs, per port, with a variety of media types. |
Efficient power use combined with high performance | Power consumption is exceptionally low, typically about 7.5W per port. |
VOQ with centralized arbitration | This feature enables fairness when one or more destinations is congested and provides support for lossless unified fabric. |
Load sharing across all fabric modules | Through the high-availability design, bandwidth is shared across all fabric modules simultaneously for optimal performance. |
Online insertion and removal (OIR) | Hot insertion and removal is supported for continuous system operation. |
Identification (ID) LED | Through the beacon feature, administrators can clearly identify the module for a service condition; ports on the I/O module can send beacons as well. |
For FCoE MultiHop over long distance please refer to https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/200234-Nexus-7000-F2-F2e-Ingress-Buffer-modific.html.
6 A mode-conditioning patch is required for use over legacy multimode fiber types such as FDDI-grade, OM1and OM2. Please refer to the product bulletin: https://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps5455/product_bulletin_c25-530836.html.
Note: Complete 10 Gigabit Ethernet transceiver information can be found at https://cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps5455/data_sheet_c78-455693.html.
Please refer to the release notes for software version requirement information.
