42 About Your System
I/O Connectivity
The M1000e enclosure
supports three layers of I/O fabric, selectable between
combinations of Ethernet, Infiniband, and fibre-channel modules. (Additional
fabrics including10 Gb Ethernet will be supported in the future.) You can install
up to six hot-swappable I/O modules in the enclosure, including fibre-channel
switches, fibre-channel pass-throughs, Infiniband switches, Ethernet switches,
and Ethernet pass-through modules
.
Guidelines for Installing I/O Modules
You must follow these guidelines when populating I/O modules. See
Figure 1-9 for the I/O bay locations.
General I/O Module Configuration Guidelines
• If an I/O module is installed in Fabric B or Fabric C, at least one blade
must have a matching mezzanine card installed to support data flow for
that I/O module.
• If a blade has an optional mezzanine card installed in a Fabric B or Fabric
C card slot, at least one corresponding I/O module must be installed to
supported data flow for that fabric
• Within each fabric type, you must install a module in the fabric’s channel
1 slot before installing a module in the fabric’s channel 2 slot. For example,
you must install a module in slot C1 before installing a module in slot C2.
• Modules may be installed in Fabrics B and C independently (you do not
need to install modules in Fabric B before installing modules in the Fabric
C slots.)
• Slots A1 and A2 only support Ethernet I/O modules. This fabric type is
hard-set to Ethernet for these slots and cannot support Fibre Channel,
Infiniband, or other fabric type modules.
• Slots A, B, and C can support Ethernet fabric-type modules.
• To enable switch configuration prior to blade imaging, I/O modules are
allowed to power-up before a blade is inserted in the enclosure.
