The Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect is a core part of the Cisco Unified Computing System, providing both network connectivity and management capabilities for the system. The Cisco UCS 6454 offers line-rate, low-latency, lossless 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fiber Channel functions.
The Cisco UCS 6454 provides the management and communication backbone for the Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers, UCS 5108 B-Series Server Chassis, UCS Managed C-Series Rack Servers, and UCS S-Series Storage Servers. All servers attached to the Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect become part of a single, highly available management domain. In addition, by supporting a unified fabric, the Cisco UCS 6454 provides both the LAN and SAN connectivity for all servers within its domain.
From a networking perspective, the Cisco UCS 6454 uses a cut-through architecture, supporting deterministic, low-latency, line-rate 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet ports, a switching capacity of 3.82 Tbps, and 320 Gbps bandwidth between FI 6454 and IOM 2208 per 5108 blade chassis, independent of packet size and enabled services. The product family supports Cisco low-latency, lossless 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet unified network fabric capabilities, which increase the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of Ethernet networks. The Fabric Interconnect supports multiple traffic classes over a lossless Ethernet fabric from the server through the Fabric Interconnect. Significant TCO savings come from an FCoE optimized server design in which Network Interface Cards (NICs), Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), cables, and switches can be consolidated.