Abstract

BLADE commissioned Tolly to evaluate the functionality of its RackSwitch G8000, RackSwitch G8124 and BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module for the IBM BladeCenter systems against a Cisco Nexus 5010 switch. Functionality tests focused on auto-negotiation, 10GbE LAN PHY support, IEEE 802.1p/Q, Jumbo Frame support, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)/EtherChannel support, Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP/PVRST+), Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) support and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)/ Data Center Bridging (DCB) feature support. Finally, the BLADE switches were tested for interoperability with the Nexus 5010 using a mixture of the above features.