Interfacing M8024 blade switches

I experimented on a spare chassis and for the record the M8024 will work in A1 and A2 but is limited to 1G on the internal ports.

"I have a couple of questions that I have not been able to find a clear answer to.

1. Can an M8024 blade switch work in Fabric A either A1 or A2 slots, can the blades see a 1G port?
2. Can an M8024 work in B1 or B2 where only 1Gb mezanine cards are installed?
3. Can an M6220 with 2x SFP installed be connected to an M8024 with a 4 port SFP card? The SFP's are model number FTLX8571D3BCL which I think is Dell part number 0N743D

Thanks
Sid Young
http://z900collector.wordpress.com/"

1) The M8024 switches can work in fabric A. For 10G support I think you will need the latest version of the M1000e mid-plane, v1.1. You will also need blades that have 10G Onboard NICs for fabric A. Definitely make sure the CMC, IOMINF, switches, and blade servers have the latest drivers and firmware available. There are a lot of fixes for 10G support lately.
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz

2) Yes, the M8024 can work in slots where only 1G mezzanine cards are installed, but this is kind of pointless and a waste of money when you can just use the M6220's for 1G support. The M6220's also have 10G support on the external uplinks when purchased with 10G uplink modules.

3) First off, the model number you specified is not a SFP. It's a 10GBase-SR SFP+ transceiver. SFP is used for 1G connections like 1000Base-SX and 1000Base-LX. With the SFP+ transceivers being the same on both sides of the fiber link you should be able to connect the M8024 and M6220, but both switches will require 10G SFP+ uplink modules to fit the SFP+ transceivers. Again, make sure firmware on the switches are up to date.

Thanks for the snippet on the SFP+ transceivers...

Sid

You're welcome! Anytime.