HP GbE2 - Manual (Page 4)

4
GbE2 Interconnect Kit
The GbE2 Interconnect Kit contains two redundant, hot-swappable GbE2 Interconnect Switches and
two 4-port LAN interconnect modules. Users first insert the LAN interconnect modules into the bottom-
left and bottom-right interconnect bays at the rear of the server blade enclosure and then install the
interconnect switches into the interconnect bays from the front of the enclosure (Figure 1). The GbE2
Interconnect Switches consolidate the 32 Ethernet ports from the server blades into one to twelve
external Gigabit Ethernet ports: eight ports on the two LAN interconnect modules and four additional
ports on the front of the switches. If desired, users can configure the GbE2 Interconnect Kit to
concentrate the 32 Ethernet signals into a single external Ethernet port (see the section titled
"Maximizing network cable reduction").
Figure 1. Installation of LAN interconnect modules and GbE2 Interconnect Switches
Modular hot-swappable design
To enhance the system serviceability and simply upgrades, both the GE2 Interconnect Switch and the
LAN interconnect modules are hot swappable. This modular design provides two key benefits:
• The GbE2 Interconnect Switches can be quickly and easily removed and replaced from the front of
the rack without the need for re-cabling.
• Each GbE 2 Interconnect Switch can support copper or fiber Ethernet network uplinks by using
different LAN interconnect modules. This design also allows the uplinks to be easily upgraded to 10
Gigabit Ethernet.
Support for copper and fiber-based networks
Two interconnect kit options are available: the C-GbE2 Interconnect Kit for copper-based networks
and the F-GbE2 Interconnect Kit for fiber-based networks. These kits are identical with exception of the
interconnect modules, which are described in the "Interconnect switch architecture" section.
Interconnect switch architecture
Each GbE2 Interconnect Kit provides an end-to-end, fully redundant architecture that maximizes
network availability (Figure 2). Redundant network adapters are routed from each server blade bay to
each hot-swappable interconnect switch (four NICs total per server bay) creating a fully meshed
topology to the external Ethernet network. The interconnect switches are cooled by on-board