Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Data Sheet

 

As of January 30, 2025, the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect has been transitioned to End-of-Sale status. Please refer to EOL15533 for more information.

Cisco Unified Computing System overview

The Cisco Unified Computing System^™ (Cisco UCS^®) is a next-generation data center platform that unites computing, networking, storage access, and virtualization resources into a cohesive system designed to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase business agility. The system integrates a low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet unified network fabric with enterprise-class, x86-architecture servers. The system is an integrated, scalable, multichassis platform in which all resources participate in a unified management domain (Figure 1).

The Cisco Unified Computing System is a Highly Available Cohesive Architecture

Product overview

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Fabric Interconnect provides the management, LAN, and storage connectivity for the Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis and direct-connect rack-mount servers. It provides the same full-featured Cisco UCS management capabilities and XML API as the full-scale Cisco UCS solution in addition to integrating with Cisco UCS Central Software and Cisco UCS Director (Figure 2).

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect extends the Cisco UCS architecture into environments with requirements for smaller domains. Providing the same unified server and networking capabilities as in the full-scale Cisco UCS solution, the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect embeds the connectivity within the Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis to provide a smaller domain of up to 20 servers (Figure 2).

Full Scale Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect solution

From a networking perspective, the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect uses a cut-through architecture, supporting deterministic, low-latency, line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet on all ports, switching capacity of up to 500 Gbps, and 80-Gbps uplink bandwidth for each chassis, independent of packet size and enabled services. Sixteen 10-Gbps links connect to the servers, providing a 20-Gbps link from each Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect to each server. The product family supports Cisco^® low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet¹ unified network fabric capabilities, which increase the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of Ethernet networks. The fabric interconnect supports multiple traffic classes over a lossless Ethernet fabric from the blade through the fabric interconnect. Significant TCO savings come from a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)-optimized server design in which Network Interface Cards (NICs), Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), cables, and switches can be consolidated.

Cisco UCS Management Architecture

Unified Fabric with FCoE: I/O consolidation

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect is built to consolidate LAN and storage traffic onto a single unified fabric, eliminating the Capital Expenditures (CapEx) and Operating Expenses (OpEx) associated with multiple parallel networks, different types of adapter cards, switching infrastructure, and cabling within racks. The unified ports allow the fabric interconnect to support direct connections from Cisco UCS to Fibre Channel, FCoE, and Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) storage devices.

Cisco UCS Manager

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect hosts and runs Cisco UCS Manager in a highly available configuration, enabling the fabric interconnects to fully manage all Cisco UCS elements. The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Fabric Interconnects support out-of-band management through a dedicated 10/100/1000-Mbps Ethernet management port. Cisco UCS Manager typically is deployed in a clustered active-passive configuration on with two UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnects connected through the cluster interconnect built into the chassis.

Optimization for virtualization

For virtualized environments, the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect supports Cisco virtualization-aware networking and Cisco Data Center Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) architecture. Cisco Data Center VM-FEX allows the fabric interconnects to provide policy-based virtual machine connectivity, with network properties moving with the virtual machine and a consistent operational model for both physical and virtual environments.

Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Fabric Interconnect (Figure 4) is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet, FCoE, and Fibre Channel switch offering up to 500-Gbps throughput and up to four unified ports and one scalability port.

Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect

Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect.

Table 1.        Characteristics of Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect²

Note:     One SFP+ port must be used as an uplink.

Features and benefits

Table 2 summarizes the features and benefits of the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect.

Table 2.        Features and benefits

Product specifications

Unified port transceivers

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect supports a wide variety of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity options using Cisco 10GBASE SFP+ modules. In addition, the four SFP+ uplink ports support 1 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity options using 1GBASE SFP modules. Alternatively, 2/4/8-Gbps Fibre Channel SFP+ interfaces are supported.

Table 3 lists the supported transceiver options.

Table 3.        Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric interconnect transceiver support matrix

Scalability port transceivers

The Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect supports a QSFP+ port that provides connectivity for up to 4 Cisco UCS rack servers.

Cabling

Table 4 provides cabling specifications for the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect.

Table 4.        Cabling specifications

Performance

●      Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect: Layer 2 hardware forwarding at 500 Gbps or 375 million packets per second (mpps)

●      MAC address table entries: 20,000

●      Low-latency cut-through design: Provides predictable, consistent traffic latency regardless of packet size, traffic pattern, or enabled features

Layer 2

●      Layer 2 interconnect ports and VLAN trunks

●      IEEE 802.1Q VLAN encapsulation

●      Support for up to 512 VLANs and 32 Virtual SANs (VSANs) per interconnect

●      Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Versions 1, 2, and 3 snooping

●      Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP): IEEE 802.3ad

●      Advanced EtherChannel hashing based on Layer 2, 3, and 4 information

●      Jumbo frames on all ports (up to 9216 bytes)

●      Pause frames (IEEE 802.3x)

QoS

●      Layer 2 IEEE 802.1p (Class of Service [CoS])

●      CoS trust

●      CoS-based egress queuing

●      Egress port-based scheduling: Deficit Weighted Round-Robin (DWRR)

●      16 hardware queues (8 each for unicast and multicast)

High availability

●      Two Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect Fabric Interconnects can be clustered together within the chassis to provide a highly available interconnect system

●      Firmware upgrades can be performed on each fabric interconnect independently, allowing server connectivity to be maintained while firmware upgrades are completed

Management

●      Interconnect management using redundant 10/100/1000-Mbps management or console ports

●      All management provided through Cisco UCS Manager; please refer to the Cisco UCS Manager data sheet for more information about management interfaces

Data Center Bridging 10 Gigabit Ethernet Unified Network Fabric

●      IEEE 802.1QPFC (per-priority pause frame support)

●      Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX) Protocol

●      IEEE 802.1Qaz: Bandwidth management

Unified ports

●      All 4 SFP+ ports configurable as 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet or 2/4/8-Gbps Fibre Channel

Industry standards

●      IEEE 802.1p: CoS prioritization

●      IEEE 802.1Q: VLAN tagging

●      IEEE 802.3: Ethernet

●      IEEE 802.3ad: LACP

●      IEEE 802.3ae: 10 Gigabit Ethernet

●      IEEE 802.1AB LLDP

●      SFP+ support

●      RMON

Physical specifications

SFP+ optics

Cisco UCS products support 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ copper Twinax cables for short distances and SFP+ optics for longer distances. SFP+ has several advantages compared to other 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity options:

●      Small 10 Gigabit Ethernet form factor

●      Optical interoperability with XENPAK, X2, and 10 Gigabit Small Form-Factor Pluggable (XFP) interface types

●      Low power consumption

●      Hot-swappable device

Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect physical and environmental specifications

Table 5 summarizes the physical and environmental specifications for the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect.

Table 5.        Physical and environmental specifications

Regulatory Standards Compliance: Safety and EMC

Table 6 summarizes Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect regulatory compliance.

Table 6.        Regulatory standards compliance

Warranty information

Warranty information is provided at Cisco.com on the Product Warranties page.

Cisco environmental sustainability

Information about Cisco’s environmental sustainability policies and initiatives for our products, solutions, operations, and extended operations or supply chain is provided in the “Environment Sustainability” section of Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report.

Reference links to information about key environmental sustainability topics (mentioned in the “Environment Sustainability” section of the CSR Report) are provided in the following table:

Cisco makes the packaging data available for informational purposes only. It may not reflect the most current legal developments, and Cisco does not represent, warrant, or guarantee that it is complete, accurate, or up to date. This information is subject to change without notice.

Cisco Unified Computing Services

Using a unified view of data center resources, Cisco and our industry-leading partners deliver services that accelerate your transition to a unified computing environment. Cisco Unified Computing Services helps you quickly deploy your data center resources and optimize ongoing operations to better meet your business needs. For more information about these and other Cisco Data Center Services, visit https://www.cisco.com/go/dcservices.

Why Cisco?

Cisco has significant experience in listening to customer requirements and providing solid technology innovation for the enterprise data center. Cisco delivers standards-based solutions backed by a broad partner ecosystem of industry leaders to provide end-to-end customer solutions. Unified computing elevates the traditional product classification of network, server, storage, operating systems, and applications to a vision that encompasses the whole data center. Cisco, as one of the largest technology providers in the world, has the resources, expertise, and customer focus to deliver on this vision.

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For more information

For more information about the Cisco UCS 6324 Fabric Interconnect, visit https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/servers-unified-computing/ucs-mini/index.html or contact your local account representative.