The Cisco B22HP Fabric Extender for HP BladeSystem provides an extension of the Cisco Nexus switch fabric to the HP server edge. Logically, it behaves like a remote line card to a parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch with the Fabric Extender and the parent Nexus together forming a distributed modular system. The Cisco Fabric Extender for HP BladeSystem forwards traffic to the parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series Switch over eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks.

Low-cost uplink connections up to 10 meters can be made with copper twin-ax cable, and longer connections up to 100 meters can use the Fabric Extender Transceiver. Standard 10 Gb optics such as SR and LR are also supported.

Downlinks to each server are auto-negotiating and work with all HP Ethernet and CNA modules allowing customers a choice of Ethernet, FCoE or iSCSI connections. Being a seamless extension of a Nexus 5000 allows traffic to be switched according to policies established by the Nexus 5000 series switch with a single point of management.