UCS-FI-6454-U Cisco Switch 54 Ports UCS 6454 Interconnect Managed Rack-mountable

Core Architecture and Design Philosophy

The UCS-FI-6454-U is built on a unified fabric architecture that eliminates traditional infrastructure silos. By converging network and storage access, it reduces the number of required adapters, cables, and switches, thereby lowering both capital and operational expenditures. Its design is intrinsically linked with Cisco UCS Manager, embedded within every Fabric Interconnect, which provides a single pane of glass for managing all connected servers, virtualization, and fabric resources.

Hardware Specifications and Form Factor

As a 2RU rack-mountable device, the UCS 6454 is engineered for high-density deployments. Its 54-port configuration offers a balanced mix of connectivity options to cater to diverse upstream and server-facing needs.

Port Breakdown and Capabilities

48 Unified Ports: These ports offer unparalleled flexibility, as each can be individually configured as either 1/10/25 Gigabit Ethernet FCoE or 8/16/32 Gigabit Fibre Channel. This allows administrators to dynamically allocate bandwidth and protocol support based on real-time workload requirements without physical reconfiguration.
6 Fixed QSFP28 Uplink Ports: Dedicated for high-bandwidth upstream connectivity, these ports support 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet, enabling seamless integration with core data center switches and ensuring non-blocking fabric performance even under extreme load.

Performance and Scalability Metrics

With a substantial aggregate throughput of 2.6 Tbps and a switching capacity of 5.1 Tbps, the 6454 ensures low-latency, line-rate performance across all ports. It is designed to scale a single UCS domain to support hundreds of physical servers and thousands of virtual machines, making it ideal for large-scale server consolidation and cloud initiatives.

Unified Management with Cisco UCS Manager

The true power of the UCS-FI-6454-U is unlocked through Cisco UCS Manager (UCSM). This embedded, device-based management software applies a policy-driven, model-based approach to infrastructure provisioning, dramatically accelerating service delivery.

Service Profiles and Policy-Based Abstraction

UCS Manager abstracts server identity (UUID, MAC addresses, WWNs), firmware, and connectivity into portable Service Profiles. These XML-based profiles allow an administrator to define a desired server configuration once and then instantiate it on any compatible hardware in the domain within minutes. This enables:

Rapid Provisioning: Deploy a new server or repurpose an existing one in minutes instead of days.
Consistent Compliance: Ensure every server is configured according to IT policy, eliminating manual errors.
High Availability: In case of hardware failure, a service profile can be associated with a replacement server, restoring identity, network connectivity, and storage access seamlessly.

Integration with Hypervisors and Cloud Stacks

Cisco UCS-FI-6454-U Manager provides deep integration with leading virtualization and cloud management platforms, including VMware vCenter, Microsoft System Center, and OpenStack. Through plugins and APIs, it enables end-to-end provisioning and visibility, allowing cloud orchestration tools to manage the underlying physical infrastructure as an extensible resource pool.

Advanced Features for Modern Data Centers

The UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect is packed with features that address contemporary challenges around network visibility, security, and automation.

Cisco Intersight™ Ready

The UCS-FI-6454-U is fully compatible with Cisco Intersight, Cisco's SaaS-based systems management and operations platform. Intersight extends UCS Manager's capabilities with cloud-based analytics, predictive support, and a global operations dashboard, enabling IT teams to manage infrastructure from anywhere and gain insights derived from Cisco's vast telemetry data.

Enhanced Monitoring and Telemetry

With support for streaming telemetry, the switch moves beyond traditional SNMP, providing granular, real-time data on network performance, buffer utilization, and drop counters. This data is critical for AIOps platforms and for troubleshooting intermittent performance issues in complex virtualized environments.

Network Analytics and Visibility

Integrated features provide deep packet-level visibility for monitoring and troubleshooting application performance across the virtual and physical network, crucial for maintaining service level agreements (SLAs).

Security and Segmentation

The fabric interconnect enforces security at the fabric level. It supports VLANs, PVLANs, and VSANs for logical segmentation. Coupled with role-based access control (RBAC) in UCS Manager and integration with external AAA servers like TACACS+ and RADIUS, it ensures that infrastructure access is tightly controlled and auditable.

Deployment Models and High-Availability

The Cisco UCS 6454 is designed for maximum resilience and can be deployed in multiple configurations to meet specific availability requirements.

Active/Active High-Availability Clusters

The most common deployment is a redundant pair of Fabric Interconnects configured in a cluster. This active/active design provides full failover protection for both management and data traffic. All server connections are dual-homed, ensuring no single point of failure in the fabric.

Fabric Failover Scenarios

In the event of a link or entire Fabric Interconnect failure, the partnered interconnect automatically takes over all traffic with minimal disruption, leveraging the virtualized identities defined in the service profiles.

Storage Connectivity Options

The 6454 provides flexible storage networking, critical for unified computing.

Fibre Channel Native Mode: Direct connection to Fibre Channel SAN switches, preserving existing SAN investments and operations.
Fibre Channel End-Host Mode: The Fabric Interconnects act as Fibre Channel switches, consolidating SAN traffic onto the unified fabric and simplifying the storage network topology.
FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet): Converges LAN and SAN traffic onto a single Ethernet cable, reducing adapter count, cabling, and switch ports.

Target Workloads and Use Cases

The performance and flexibility of the UCS 6454 make it suitable for a broad spectrum of enterprise and service provider applications.

Virtualization and Private Cloud Consolidation

It is the ideal foundation for large-scale VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Citrix Hypervisor deployments, where rapid VM mobility (vMotion/Live Migration) and consistent policy application are paramount.

Business-Critical Applications

Databases (Oracle RAC, SQL Server), ERP systems, and collaboration platforms benefit from the reliability, performance isolation, and high availability provided by the UCS 6454 fabric.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

The service profile abstraction enables seamless workload mobility between geographically dispersed UCS domains, simplifying stretch-cluster configurations and disaster recovery failover processes.

Comparison and Positioning

Understanding where the UCS-FI-6454-U fits within the broader Cisco portfolio and competitive landscape is key.

Evolution from Previous Generations

The 6454 succeeds the 6332 and 6300 series Fabric Interconnects, offering significant leaps in port density (48 unified ports vs. 32), uplink bandwidth (100G vs. 40G), and total system throughput. It also introduces enhanced telemetry and deeper Intersight integration.

Key Differentiators vs. Traditional Top-of-Rack Switches

Unlike standalone top-of-rack (ToR) switches, the UCS 6454 is part of an integrated system with a unified management model. It manages servers as fabric-attached resources, not just network endpoints. This eliminates the "rack and stack" approach to server networking, replacing it with a policy-based, template-driven model that is far more agile and less error-prone.