Is Active Twinax supported on Nimble CS240G?

[wfarmer113]

I am attempting to connect a Nimble CS240G with 10G twinax to a Brocade VDX 6710 and the long and short of it is that apparently that the Brocade doesn't support Passive Twinax, showing the SFP+ as incompatible (Passive Twinax cables not recognized in VDX switch... - Brocade Community). Anyone have any alternative ideas? Fiber Perchance instead to get this seeded before I put it on my Catalyst 4500x? Thanks!

-Will

[etang40 · Accepted solution]

Hi William,

I've done about 3 implementations with Brocade VDX 6720s with no issues using Brocade branded SFP+ Twinax cables. 

I'd be happy to reach out to my customer who has this working and see if I can get a cable model # from them.

-Eddie

[aprice119]

Hi Will.

I can second Eddie's comments based on a past project.  When we were using a Brocade VDX switch in a 10GbE iSCSI pilot we found that it was very particular about the cables we could use.  Brocade twinax cable would give us a link but generic twinax cables would not (despite Brocade themselves recommending that generic cable) and we had very unstable results with third-party active twinax.  If you're not using Brocade-branded twinax already I'd certainly try that first.  Fiber is an option but you'll need to spend a bunch on the transceivers for what's obviously a very short link.  The Nimble won't care what connection it gets as long as its SFP+ compliant.  We have Cisco UCS and had to use Cisco twinax to get the Fabric Interconnects to talk to Nimble.

Brocade 1m twinax: 10G-SFPP-TWX-0101

Brocade 3m twinax: 10G-SFPP-TWX-0301

Brocade 5m twinax: 10G-SFPP-TWX-0501

Good luck!

Alan

[rdinkel77]

Our Brocade VDX 6740(NOS 4.0.1) is using both HP re-branded and Brocade branded twinax cables and I am having zero issues.

6740-1# show media interface tengigabitethernet 1/0/1

  Interface        TenGigabitEthernet 1/0/1

  Optic is not Brocade qualified, optical monitoring is not supported

  Identifier     3    SFP

  Name           id

  Vendor Name    Tyco Electronics

  Vendor OUI     00:40:76

  Vendor PN      2074260-4

  Vendor Rev     F

6740-1# show media interface tengigabitethernet 1/0/24

  Interface      TenGigabitEthernet 1/0/24

  Identifier     3    SFP

  Connector      33   Copper Pigtail

  Transceiver            5580084104000002 10_GB/s TW Short_dist

  Name           cu

  Encoding       0

  Baud Rate      103 (units 100 megabaud)

  Length 9u      0   (units km)

  Length 9u      0   (units 100 meters)

  Length 50u     0   (units 10 meters)

  Length 62.5u   0   (units 10 meters)

  Length Cu      1   (units 1 meter)

  Vendor Name    BROCADE

  Vendor OUI     00:05:1e

  Vendor PN      58-1000026-01

  Vendor Rev     A

  Wavelength     3072(units nm)

  Options        0012

  BR Max         0

  BR Min         0

  Serial No      CAMD13370013702

  Date Code      130920

  Optical Monitor No

  Temperature    N/A

  Voltage        N/A

  Current        N/A

  TX Power       N/A