Lenovo G8264CS, 7309DRX Product Manual

RackSwitch G8264CS

Product Guide

Many clients successfully use Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity from their servers to their LAN and SAN.
These clients are seeking ways to reduce the cost and complexity of these environments by using the capabilities of
Ethernet and Fibre Channel convergence.

The RackSwitch™ G8264CS top-of-rack switch (shown in Figure 1) offers the benefits of a converged infrastructure.
As part of its forward thinking design, this switch has flexibility for future growth and expansion. This switch is ideal
for clients who are looking to connect to existing SANs and clients who want native Fibre Channel connectivity, in
addition to support for such protocols as Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and iSCSI.

The RackSwitch G8264CS includes the following highlights:

Lossless Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and FCoE in one switch

36 SFP+ ports supporting 1 Gb or 10 Gb Ethernet

Flexibility with 12 Omni Ports that support 10 Gb Ethernet or 4/8 Gb Fibre Channel connections

Ideal for clients looking to aggregate FC or FCoE traffic with the ability to connect to existing SANs

Future-proofed with four 40 Gb QSFP+ ports

Low cost, low complexity, and simpler deployment and management

Figure 1. RackSwitch G8264CS

Did you know?

The RackSwitch G8264CS simplifies deployment with its innovative and flexible Omni Port technology. The 12 Omni
Ports on the G8264CS give clients the flexibility to choose a 10 Gb Ethernet, 4/8 Gb Fibre Channel, or both for
upstream connections. In FC mode, Omni Ports provide convenient access to FC storage. The Omni Port technology
that is provided on the G8264CS helps consolidate enterprise storage, networking, data, and management onto a
simple-to-manage, efficient, and cost-effective single fabric. Also, the G8264CS can be used to create 252-node
PODs or clusters with Flex System Interconnect Fabric.

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Part number information

The part numbers to order the switch and additional options are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Part numbers and feature codes for ordering

Description Part number Feature code for

MTM 7309-HCK

Feature code for
MTM 7309-HCM

Switch

RackSwitch G8264CS (Rear to Front) 7309DRX A3FL None

RackSwitch G8264CS (Front to Rear) 7309DFX None A3FM

Miscellaneous options

Console Cable Kit Spare 90Y9462 A2MG A2MG

Adjustable 19" 4 Post Rail Kit 00D6185 A3KP A3KP

Recessed 19" 4 Post Rail Kit 00CG089 None A51M

Switch Seal Kit 00Y3001 None A4WX

iDataPlex Rail Kit 90Y3535 None A1SZ

Air Inlet Duct for 483 mm RackSwitch 00D6060 A3KQ None

Hot-Swappable, Rear-to-Front 750W CFF Power Supply
Spare

00D5858 A2X7 None

Hot-Swappable, Front-to-Rear 550W CFF Power Supply
Spare

00D5961 None A3FN

Hot-Swappable, Rear-to-Front Fan Assembly Spare 00D6071 A54K None

Hot-Swappable, Front-to-Rear Fan Assembly Spare 00D6073 None A54J

The part numbers for the G8264CS switches include the following items:

One RackSwitch G8264CS with two power supplies and four fan assemblies (rear-to-front airflow or front-to­rear airflow)

Generic Rack Mount Kit (2-post)

Console Cable Kit that includes:

RJ-45 (plug) to RJ-45 (plug) serial cable (1 m)
Mini-USB to RJ-45 (jack) adapter cable (0.2 m) with retention clip
DB-9 to RJ-45 (jack) adapter

Warranty Flyer

Important Notices Flyer

Documentation CD-ROM

Note: Power cables are not included and must be ordered separately (see Table 2 for details).

The G8264CS switch supports up to two redundant hot-swap 550 W AC power supplies for front-to-rear air flow or
750 W AC power supplies for rear-to-front air flow (two power supplies come standard with the switch) and up to
four redundant hot-swap fan assemblies (four fan assemblies come standard with the switch). Spare power supplies
and fan assemblies can be ordered, if required. Each Power Supply Spare option contains one hot-swap power
supply (rear-to-front or front-to-rear), and each Fan Assembly Spare option contains one hot-swap fan assembly
(rear-to front or front-to-rear).

The G8264CS switch also comes standard with the Console Cable Kit for management through a serial interface.
Spare serial management cables can be ordered, if required. The Console Cable Kit Spare option contains the
following items:

RackSwitch G8264CS 2

RJ-45 (plug) to RJ-45 (plug) serial cable (1 m)

Mini-USB to RJ-45 (jack) adapter cable (0.2 m) with retention clip

DB-9 to RJ-45 (jack) adapter

The G8264CS switch supports optional adjustable 19-inch, 4-post rack installation kit, part number 00D6185.
Optionally, Air Inlet Duct, part number 00D6060, can be ordered with the G8264CS (rear-to-front airflow) switch for
4-post rack installations with the Adjustable 4-post Rail Kit (00D6185).

The G8264CS (front-to-rear airflow) switch also supports optional recessed 19-inch, 4-post rack kit (00CG089)
together with the Switch Seal Kit (00Y3001) that are used when the switch is installed in the Intelligent Cluster™
Rack (MT 1410), Enterprise Rack (MT 9363), or PureFlex® System Rack (MT 9363) with NeXtScale™ System. The
G8264CS (front-to-rear airflow) switch also supports 4-post iDataPlex® rack kit (90Y3535) which is used when the
switch is installed in the iDataPlex Rack.

The G8264CS switch ships standard without any AC power cables. Table 2 lists the part numbers and feature codes
to order the power cables (two power cables are required per switch).

Table 2. Power cables

Description Part number Feature code for

MTM 7309-HCK and
7309-HCM

Rack power cables

1.5m, 10A/100-250V, C13 to IEC 320-C14 Rack Power Cable 39Y7937 6201

2.8m, 10A/100-250V, C13 to IEC 320-C20 Rack Power Cable 39Y7938 6204

4.3m, 10A/100-250V, C13 to IEC 320-C14 Rack Power Cable 39Y7932 6263

Country-specific power cords

European 10A line C13 to CEE 7/7 (2.8M) 39Y7917 6212

Denmark 10A line C13 to DK2-5A (2.8M) 39Y7918 6213

Switzerland 10A line C13 to SEV 1011 (2.8M) 39Y7919 6216

Israel 10A line C13 to SI 32 (2.8M) 39Y7920 6218

South Africa 10A line C13 to SABS 164/1 (2.8M) 39Y7922 6214

United Kingdom 10A line C13 to BS 1363 (2.8M) 39Y7923 6215

Australia/NZ 10A line C13 to SAA-AS C112 (2.8M) 39Y7924 6211

Korea 7A line C13 to KETI 15A/250V (2.8M) 39Y7925 6219

India 6A line C13 to Fig 68 (2.8M) 39Y7927 6269

China 6A line C13 to GB 2099.1 (2.8M) 39Y7928 6210

Brazil 10A line C13 to NBR 6147 (2.8M) 39Y7929 6223

Argentina 10A line C13 to IRAM 2063 (2.8M) 39Y7930 6222

10A/250V C13 to NEMA 6-15P 2.8m power cord 46M2592 A1RF

Japan 10A/100V C13 to JIS C-8303 2.8m power cord 46M2593 A1RE

Supported cables and transceivers

With the flexibility of the G8264CS switch, clients can take advantage of the technologies that they require for
multiple environments:

For 1 GbE links, clients can use RJ-45 UTP cables up to 100 m with 1000BASE-T SFP transceivers. Clients
that need longer distances can leverage the 1000BASE-SX SFP transceivers, which can drive distances up to

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220 meters by using 62.5 µ multi-mode fiber and up to 550 meters with 50 µ multi-mode fiber, or the
1000BASE-LX transceivers that support distances up to 10 kilometers using single-mode fiber (1310 nm).

For 10 GbE links, clients can use direct-attached copper (DAC) SFP+ cables for in-rack cabling and distances
up to 7 m. These DAC cables have SFP+ connectors on each end, and they do not need separate
transceivers. For longer distances, the 10GBASE-SR transceiver can support distances up to 300 meters over
OM3 multimode fiber or up to 400 meters over OM4 multimode fiber with LC connectors. The 10GBASE-LR
transceivers can support distances up to 10 kilometers on single mode fiber with LC connectors. For
extended distances, the 10GBASE-ER transceivers can support distances up to 40 kilometers on single mode
fiber with LC connectors.
To increase the number of available 10 GbE ports, clients can split out four 10 GbE ports for each 40 GbE port
using QSFP+ DAC Breakout Cables for distances up to 5 meters. For distances up to 100 m, optical MTP-to­LC break-out cables can be used with the 40GBASE-SR4 transceiver, but Lenovo does not supply these
optical breakout cables.

For 40 GbE to 40 GbE connectivity, clients can use the affordable QSFP+ to QSFP+ DAC cables for distances
up to 7 meters. For distances up to 100 m, the 40GBASE-SR4 QSFP+ transceiver can be used with OM3
multimode fiber with MTP connectors or up to 150 m when using OM4 multimode fiber with MTP connectors.
For distances up to 10 km, the 40GBASE-LR QSFP+ transceiver can be used with single mode fiber with LC
connectors.

For 8 Gb or 4 Gb FC links (supported on Omni Ports only), you can use 8 Gb FC SFP+ SW optical transceivers
plus LC fiber optics cables for distances up to 150 m with 50 µ multi-mode fiber or up to 21 m with 62.5 µ
multi-mode fiber. For longer distances, the 8 Gb FC LW optical transceivers can support up to 10 km on
single-mode fiber with LC connectors. These transceivers can operate at 4 Gb or 8 Gb speeds.

Table 3 lists the supported cables and transceivers.

Table 3. Supported transceivers and direct-attach cables

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Description Part

number

Feature code
(MTM 7309­HCK / 7309­HCM)

Maximum
quantity
supported

SFP transceivers - 1 GbE

Lenovo 1000BASE-T SFP Transceiver (does not support 10/100 Mbps) 00FE333 A5DL 36

Lenovo 1000BASE-SX SFP Transceiver 81Y1622 3269 36

Lenovo 1000BASE-LX SFP Transceiver 90Y9424 A1PN 36

SFP+ transceivers - 10 GbE

Lenovo 10GBASE-SR SFP+ Transceiver 46C3447 5053 48

Lenovo 10GBASE-LR SFP+ Transceiver (CS) 00D6180 A3NZ 48

Lenovo 10GBASE-ER SFP+ Transceiver 90Y9415 A1PP 6

Optical cables for 1 GbE SFP SX, 10 GbE SR, and 4/8 Gb FC SW SFP+ transceivers

Lenovo 0.5m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN499 ASR5 48

Lenovo 1m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN502 ASR6 48

Lenovo 3m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN505 ASR7 48

Lenovo 5m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN508 ASR8 48

Lenovo 10m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN511 ASR9 48

Lenovo 15m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN514 ASRA 48

Lenovo 25m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN517 ASRB 48

Lenovo 30m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable 00MN520 ASRC 48

SFP+ passive direct-attach cables - 10 GbE

Lenovo 0.5m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 00D6288 A3RG 48

Lenovo 1m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 90Y9427 A1PH 48

Lenovo 1.5m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 00AY764 A51N 48

Lenovo 2m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 00AY765 A51P 48

Lenovo 3m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 90Y9430 A1PJ 48

Lenovo 5m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 90Y9433 A1PK 48

Lenovo 7m Passive SFP+ DAC Cable 00D6151 A3RH 48

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SFP+ active direct-attach cables - 10 GbE

Lenovo 1m Active SFP+ DAC Cable 95Y0323 A25A 48

Lenovo 3m Active SFP+ DAC Cable 95Y0326 A25B 48

Lenovo 5m Active SFP+ DAC Cable 95Y0329 A25C 48

Lenovo 1m Active DAC SFP+ Cable (replaces 95Y0323) 00VX111 AT2R 48

Lenovo 3m Active DAC SFP+ Cable (replaces 95Y0326) 00VX114 AT2S 48

Lenovo 5m Active DAC SFP+ Cable (replaces 95Y0329) 00VX117 AT2T 48

QSFP+ transceiver and cables - 40 GbE

Lenovo 40GBASE-SR4 QSFP+ Transceiver 49Y7884 A1DR 4

Lenovo 40GBASE-LR4 QSFP+ Transceiver 00D6222 A3NY 4

Optical cables for 40 GbE QSFP+ SR transceivers

Lenovo 10m QSFP+ MTP-MTP OM3 MMF Cable 90Y3519 A1MM 4

Lenovo 30m QSFP+ MTP-MTP OM3 MMF Cable 90Y3521 A1MN 4

Lenovo 10m QSFP+ MTP-MTP OM3 MMF Cable (replaces 90Y3519) 00VX003 AT2U 4

Lenovo 30m QSFP+ MTP-MTP OM3 MMF Cable (replaces 90Y3521) 00VX005 AT2V 4

QSFP+ breakout cables - 40 GbE to 4x 10 GbE

Lenovo 1m Passive QSFP+ to SFP+ Breakout DAC Cable 49Y7886 A1DL 4

Lenovo 3m Passive QSFP+ to SFP+ Breakout DAC Cable 49Y7887 A1DM 4

Lenovo 5m Passive QSFP+ to SFP+ Breakout DAC Cable 49Y7888 A1DN 4

QSFP+ direct-attach cables - 40 GbE

Lenovo 1m Passive QSFP+ DAC Cable 49Y7890 A1DP 4

Lenovo 3m Passive QSFP+ DAC Cable 49Y7891 A1DQ 4

Lenovo 5m Passive QSFP+ DAC Cable 00D5810 A2X8 4

Lenovo 7m Passive QSFP+ DAC Cable 00D5813 A2X9 4

SFP+ transceivers - 8 Gb FC (supported in Omni Ports)

Lenovo 8Gbps Fibre Channel SW SFP+ Transceiver (supports 4/8 Gbps) 44X1964 5075 12

Lenovo 8Gbps Fibre Channel LW SFP+ Transceiver (supports 4/8 Gbps) 00FM472 ASCK 12

Benefits

The traditional approach of segmenting storage and data traffic has certain advantages, such as traffic isolation and
independent administration. Nevertheless, it also poses several disadvantages, including higher infrastructure costs,
complexity of management, and under-utilization of resources. Clients must invest in separate infrastructures for
LAN, SAN, and interprocess communications (IPC) fabrics, including host adapters, cables, switching, routers, and
other device-specific equipment.

The RackSwitch G8264CS is considered particularly suited for these clients:

Clients who want to implement a converged infrastructure with FCoE where the G8264CS acts as a Full
Fabric FC/FCoE switch for the end-to-end FCoE configurations or as a Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) NPV
Gateway breaking out FC traffic for the native Fibre Channel SAN connectivity.

Clients who are implementing a virtualized environment.

Clients who require investment protection for 40 GbE network connectivity.

Clients who want to reduce TCO and improve performance while maintaining high levels of availability and
security.

Clients who want to avoid or minimize oversubscription, which can result in congestion and loss of
performance.

RackSwitch G8264CS 6

The RackSwitch G8264CS offers the following features and benefits:

Lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO) with consolidation
By consolidating LAN and SAN networks and converging to a single fabric, clients can reduce the equipment
that is needed in their data centers. This benefit significantly reduces the costs that are associated with energy
and cooling, management and maintenance, and capital costs.

Improves performance and increases availability
The G8264CS is an enterprise-class and full-featured data center switch that offers high-bandwidth
performance with 36 1/10 Gb SFP+ connections, 12 Omni Ports that can be used for 10 Gb SFP+
connections, 4/8 Gb Fibre Channel connections, or both, plus four 40 Gb QSFP+ connections. The G8264CS
switch delivers full line rate performance on Ethernet ports, making it an ideal choice for managing dynamic
workloads across the network. This switch also provides a rich Layer 2 and Layer 3 feature set that is ideal for
many of today’s data centers. Combined with redundant hot-swappable power and fans, along with
numerous high availability features, this switch comes fully equipped to handle the demands of business­sensitive traffic.

High performance
The 10 Gb/40 Gb switch provides the best combination of low latency, non-blocking line-rate switching, and
ease of management. It has a throughput of up to 1.28 Tbps.

Lower power and better cooling
The G8264CS uses as little as 330 W of power, which is a fraction of the power consumption of most
competitive offerings. Unlike side-cooled switches, which can cause heat recirculation and reliability
concerns, the front-to-rear or rear-to-front cooling design of the G8264CS switch reduces the costs of data
center air conditioning by having airflow match the servers in the rack. In addition, variable speed fans help to
automatically reduce power consumption.

Support for Virtual Fabric
The G8264CS can help customers address I/O requirements for multiple NICs while reducing cost and
complexity. By using Virtual Fabric, you can carve a physical dual-port NIC into multiple vNICs (between 2 - 8
vNICs) and to create a virtual pipe between the adapter and the switch for improved performance, availability,
and security. It is also important to know support for FCoE, as 2 vNIC cans be configured as CNAs to allow for
additional cost savings through convergence.

VM-aware networking
VMready software on the switch simplifies configuration and improves security in virtualized environments.
VMready automatically detects virtual machine movement between physical servers and instantly reconfigures
the network policies of each VM across VLANs to keep the network up and running without interrupting traffic
or impacting performance. VMready works with all leading VM providers, such as VMware vSphere, Citrix Xen,
IBM PowerVM, and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Layer 3 functionality
The G8264CS includes Layer 3 functionality, which provides security and performance benefits, because
inter-VLAN traffic stays within the switch. This switch also provides the full range of Layer 3 protocols from
static routes for technologies, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
for enterprise customers.

Seamless interoperability
The G8264CS switches perform seamlessly with other vendors' upstream switches.

Fault tolerance
The G8264CS switches learn alternative routes automatically and perform faster convergence in the unlikely
case of a link, switch, or power failure. The switch uses proven technologies, such as L2 trunk failover,
advanced VLAN-based failover, VRRP, and Hot Links.

Multicast support
These switches support IGMP Snooping v1, v2, and v3 with 2K IGMP groups. They also support Protocol
Independent Multicast (PIM), such as PIM Sparse Mode or PIM Dense Mode.

Transparent networking capability
With a simple configuration change to easy connect mode, the RackSwitch G8264CS becomes a transparent
network device, invisible to the core, eliminating network administration concerns of Spanning Tree Protocol

RackSwitch G8264CS 7

configuration/interoperability and VLAN assignments, and avoids any possible loops. By emulating a host NIC
to the data center core, it accelerates the provisioning of VMs by eliminating the need to configure the typical
access switch parameters.

Features and specifications

Note: Features and specifications listed in this section are based on Networking OS 7.8.

The RackSwitch G8264CS has the following features and specifications:

Form factor: 1U rack mount switch

RackSwitch G8264CS Rear-to-Front version for ports located in the rear of the rack matching System
x®, BladeCenter® and Flex System® designs
RackSwitch G8264CS Front-to-Rear version for ports located in the front of the rack matching airflow
of iDataPlex and NeXtScale System® designs

Ports

36 ports for 1 Gb or 10 Gb Ethernet SFP/SFP+ transceivers (support for 1000BASE-SX, 1000BASE-LX,
1000BASE-T, 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE-LR, or 10GBASE-ER) or SFP+ direct-attach copper cables.
SFP+ modules and DAC cables are not included and must be purchased separately (see Table 3).
12 Omni Ports, each of which can operate as a 10 Gb Ethernet (support for 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE­LR, 10GBASE-ER or 10 GbE SFP+ DAC cables), or auto-negotiating 4/8 Gb Fibre Channel, depending
on the SFP+ transceiver installed in the port. SFP+ modules and DAC cables are not included and
must be purchased separately (see Table 3).
Note: Omni Ports do not support 1 Gb Ethernet SFP transceivers.

4 ports for 40 Gb Ethernet QSFP+ transceivers, QSFP+ to QSFP+ DAC cables, or QSFP+ to 4x 10 Gb
SFP+ break-out cables. QSFP+ modules and DAC cables are not included and must be purchased
separately (see Table 3).
One 10/100/1000 Ethernet port (RJ-45 connector) for out of band (OOB) management
One RS-232 serial port (mini-USB connector) that provides an additional means to configure the switch
One USB port for mass storage devices

Scalability and performance

1 Gb, 10 Gb, and 40 Gb Ethernet ports for bandwidth optimization and performance
Up to 64 10 Gb Ethernet SFP+ connections (with optional break-out cables)
Non-blocking architecture with wire-speed forwarding of traffic and aggregated throughput of 1.28
Tbps
Media access control (MAC) address learning: automatic update, support for up to 128,000 MAC
addresses
Up to 128 IP interfaces per switch (IP interface 128 is reserved for out-of-band management)
Static and LACP (IEEE 802.3ad) link aggregation, up to 64 trunk groups with up to 32 ports per trunk
group
Support for jumbo frames (up to 9,216 bytes)
Broadcast/multicast storm control
IGMP snooping to limit flooding of IP multicast traffic
IGMP filtering to control multicast traffic for hosts participating in multicast groups
Configurable traffic distribution schemes over trunk links based on source/destination IP or MAC
addresses, or both
Fast port forwarding and fast uplink convergence for rapid STP convergence

Availability and redundancy

Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) for Layer 3 router redundancy
IEEE 802.1D STP for providing L2 redundancy
IEEE 802.1s Multiple STP (MSTP) for topology optimization, up to 32 STP instances are supported by a
single switch
IEEE 802.1w Rapid STP (RSTP) provides rapid STP convergence for critical delay-sensitive traffic like
voice or video
Per-VLAN Rapid STP (PVRST) enhancements
Layer 2 Trunk Failover to support active/standby configurations of network adapter teaming on
compute nodes

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