The Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects are a core part of the Cisco Unified Computing System, providing both network connectivity and management capabilities for the system (Figure 2). The Cisco UCS 6200 Series offers line-rate, low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel functions.

The Cisco UCS 6200 Series provides the management and communication backbone for the Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers and 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis. All chassis, and therefore all blades, attached to the Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects become part of a single, highly available management domain. In addition, by supporting unified fabric, the Cisco UCS 6200 Series provides both LAN and SAN connectivity for all blades within its domain.

The Cisco UCS 6200 Series uses a cut-through networking architecture, supporting deterministic, low-latency, line rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet on all ports, switching capacity of 2 terabits (Tb), and bandwidth of 320 Gbps per chassis, independent of packet size and enabled services. The product family supports Cisco® low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet[1] 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 blade through the 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.