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Fibre Channel pass-through
The GbE2 Interconnect Kits offer the ability to pass-through BL20p G2 Fibre Channel signals using the
optional GbE2 Storage Connectivity Kit. Therefore, both Ethernet LAN signal consolidation and Fibre
Channel SAN signal pass-through is now possible with a single interconnect. The GbE2 Interconnect
Switch chassis is simply used as a carrier to pass-through the Fibre Channel signals. The Ethernet LAN
and the Fibre Channel SAN signals are completely isolated from each other even though they share
the common GbE2 chassis.
The GbE2 Storage Connectivity Kit provides components for one p-Class server blade enclosure. This
kit contains two GbE2 Fibre Channel Mezzanine Cards (one per switch) consisting of a retimer to
recondition the Fibre Channel signals and two 8-port SAN (OctalFC) interconnect modules (Figure 4).
Customers plug the GbE2 Fibre Channel Mezzanine Card into the connectors provided in each GbE2
Interconnect Switch prior to loading the switches into the interconnect bays. A OctalFC interconnect
module is installed into each interconnect bay from the back of the server blade enclosure. Each
OctalFC interconnect module contains eight slots for connection to the SAN. Customers plug the small-
form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers (included with the BL20p G2 Dual Port Fibre Channel
Mezzanine Card) into the OctalFC interconnect module SFP slots.
Figure 4. GbE2 Interconnect Switch with GbE2 Storage Connectivity Kit
Providing redundant, independent path access to the SAN, one Fibre Channel signal from each
ProLiant BL20p G2 server blade bay is routed through the blade enclosure backplane and to the
chassis of each GbE2 Interconnect Switch. The Fibre Channel signals travel through the GbE2 Fibre
Channel Mezzanine Card (for signal conditioning) and then directly to the OctalFC interconnect
module (Figure 5). The GbE2 Storage Connectivity Kit supports Fibre Channel signal pass-through
from eight BL20p G2 servers for a total of 16 Fibre Channel signals per server blade enclosure (8
signals routed through each GbE Interconnect Switch chassis). The ProLiant BL40p server blade does
not require Fibre Channel signals to be routed to the interconnect bays.