[c-nsp] Cisco 3012 IBM Blade Switch Configurations?

[David Hughes]

On 13/02/2009, at 3:46 AM, McLean Pickett wrote:

> The CIGESM's are expensive and have limited feature support based on  
> the way
> they are deployed in the chassis (you can't channel the NICs on the  
> blades).
> They are additional devices to support and every time the server  
> guys reboot
> the chassis spanning tree is impacted.

We have lots of IBM chassis with CIGESMs deployed in the wild and are  
pretty happy with them.  The addition of the L3 Fa port in the 3012  
and Protected Mode removes all the strange "chassis module" behavior  
and makes them a pretty normal switch.

 From my perspective, the blade chassis is an enclosure that contains  
servers, a couple of GigE switches and a couple of FC switches.   
Conceptually, you can view the enclosure as a small rack.  Having  
server guys just randomly rebooting a chassis would be like having a  
server guy randomly power cycling a rack.  They would not have a happy  
day.  Using passthrough module removes the advantages of using the  
blade chassis IMHO.


David
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