Dual NIC Cards

[mattesong]

If I have two blade servers with two NIC cards in it, how many virtual connects or cisco 3120g modules would I need? Does each NIC connect to each of the virtual connects or switches?

What happens if I have four - six NICs? (2 embedded, 1 quad port) Will I need 2 virtual connects or two switches for every NICs? or does the mezzanines ONLY require a dedicated virtual connect or switch? thank you.

[Matti_Kurkela]

The answer is different depending on the type of your chassis (c3000 or c7000), the type of blades (full- or half-height) and on which slot the mezzanine cards are plugged in.

Attached is a .zip file that contains a set of I/O routing diagrams for both chassis & blade types. You can find these in the Installation Guide of your chassis too. Understanding these diagrams is vital for anyone maintaining c-class blades or designing blade configurations.

As you say you have 2 embedded NICs, I think you have half-height blades: full-height ones would have 4 embedded NICs each.

For a c3000, one I/O module in bay 1 would be enough to cover all embedded NICs. For a quad port mezzanine, you would be required to plug it into mezzanine slot 2 and install I/O modules in slots 3 and 4, for a total of three I/O modules.

For a c7000, the connections are spread out even further. This allows you to avoid a configuration with no single points of failure, but unfortunately requires more I/O modules.
You'll need two I/O modules to cover the internal NICs (as always in a c7000), plus four more in slots 5-8 to catch all the outputs of the quad NICs.

MK

[mattesong]

Thank you.
- Gabe