Section 1 7450 ESS Family

Module 3 SF/CPM
Switching Fabric/Central Processor Module

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Alcatel 7450 ESS Implementation R2.0

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Module Objectives
Upon successful completion of this module, the student will understand the:

7450 switch fabric/central processor module (SF/CPM)

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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7450 Switch Fabric/Central Processing Module

The Switch Fabric/Central Processing Module (SF/CPM) is used by the 7450 ESS-7. The ESS-7,
supports two SF/CPMs.
A SF/CPM consists of two logically separate functions that are physically co-located on the same
card:

A 200Gb/s switch fabric constructed from multiple independent switching elements. The
switch fabric is responsible for sending cells received on one port out another.

The core control processing for a 7450 ESS node. Control plane processing is carried out by a
Dual Processing Complex (DPC). The DPC uses two identical CPUs that jointly perform all of
the centralized chassis management and implement the bulk of the protocol stacks (OSPF, ISIS, MPLS, etc.). Each CPU uses the switch fabric to send and receive control plane traffic.

The 7450 ESS-7 supports two SF/CPM cards, to provide redundancy. Redundancy means fully
redundant full-duplex switching capacity as well as fully redundant control plane processing.
Additional resiliency is achieved by the fact that the DPC portion of the SF/CPM is not part of the
traffic forwarding plane. This means that traffic on already established routes / paths will not be
disrupted even if the DPC should fail.
The ESS-1 chassis does not use the SF/CPM card. Instead, functionality provided by a separate
SF/CPM and IOM cards on the ESS-7 is integrated into the ESS-1 chassis. A virtual backplane
allows traffic to travel between MDAs. The CPU on the integrated IOM module performs the
protocol stack processing functions performed by the SF/CPM card on the ESS-7.

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPU Module (SF/CPM)

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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7450 SF/CPM Front Panel

Front Panel Components
1

Captive Screw

Ejector Lever

BITS port

Provisioned with an RJ-45 jack; used for the network clock source.

DCE

When switch is in this position the console port acts as a data

communications equipment (DCE) port.

DTE

When switch is in this position the console port acts as a data

terminal equipment (DTE) port.

Console

The console port is a serial port with a DB-9 jack. The port is used
for the initial system startup as well as system configuration and monitoring.

AUX

A serial port with a DB-9 connector; used for a modem connection.

Alarm

A DB-9 serial output port used to connect to external alarm indication

device.

ACO/LT

Audible Alarm Cutoff/Lamptest button; used to verify the correct

operation of front panel LEDs and turn off external alarm control bits
until the next alarm occurs.

Mgmt. port

Ethernet management port.

10

Link

Amber : 10 Mb/s
Green : 100 Mb/s
Unlit : Operationally down

Data

Green (blinking) : RX/TX activity

Amber (blinking): Error condition

Compact Flash slots

Compact Flash #1
Compact Flash #2
Compact Flash #3

Default name: cf1:

Default name: cf2:
Default name: cf3:
The Compact Flash card (cf3) in this slot should contain the boot and
configuration files.

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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SF/CPM Front Panel

LEDs
10
3

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

1
2

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

>

Reset

>

Power

>

A recessed button used to restart the SF/CPM.

Blue: Power on.
Unlit: Power off.

Status
Green: Operationally up and administratively
up.
Amber: Operationally down but administratively
up.
Unlit: Not operational, shutdown, or
administratively down.

>

M/S Master/Slave Ctl:

Green: Indicates that the SF/CPM is
designated as the primary.
Green (blinking): Indicates that the SF/CPM is
operating as the secondary

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

>

Master/Slave M/S Ref:

Green: Indicates that the SF/CPM is
designated as the primary clocking
reference.
Green (blinking): Indicates that the SF/CPM
is operating as the secondary clocking
reference

>

Off: Clock not initialized.

Timing.
Green: Locked (operational state)
Green (blinking): Clock in (internal) holdover
state
Amber: Alarm condition
Amber (blinking): Clock in free running state
Unlit: Clock not initialized or no SONET ports
are provisioned on the system.

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

>

The Reference LEDs are lit only on the active

CPM and indicate the status and quality of the
individual timing sources.

Reference 1
Green: Selected as clock reference input.
Green (blinking): Qualified but set as standby
clock reference.
Amber: Not qualified and in use.
Off: Not in use, not configured.
Reference 2
This LED is lit only on the active CPM.
Reference 3 BITS network clocking
Green: Selected as clock reference input.
Green (blinking): Qualified but set as standby
clock reference.
Amber: Not qualified and in use.
Off: Not in use, not configured.

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

>

>

Power Supply 1,2,3,4 Power Supply LEDs are lit only on

the active CPM.
Green: Indicates that a power supply module is
installed and operational in the associated slot.
Amber: Indicates an error condition with an installed
power supply module in the associated slot.
Unlit: Indicates that a power supply module is not
installed or not recognized.
LED 1: Displays status for DC PEM or AC PSM A
( ESS-7 only).
LED 2: Displays status for DC PEM or AC PSM B
(ESS-7).
LED 3: N/A
LED 4: N/A
Fan Status 1,2,3 Fan Status LEDs are lit only on the
active CPM.
Green: Indicates that a cooling tray is installed and
operational.
Amber: Indicates a cooling tray failure.
Unlit: Indicates that a cooling tray is not installed.

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

>

Compact Flash 1,2,3 Compact Flash

LEDs are lit on both the active and
standby CPMs.
Green: Indicates that the flash card is
operational and in a read or write process.
Amber (solid): Error condition exists.
Amber (blinking): Indicates that the slot is in
an operationally down mode. This is the only
mode to safely remove the flash card.
Unlit: A flash card is not installed in the slot.

Note: Do not remove the flash card when

the LED is lit green.

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPM LEDs

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Alarms The Alarm LEDs are lit only on

the active CPM.
OT Red: An over temperature condition
exists.
Crit Red: A critical condition exists, such as a
severe over temperature condition, a fan tray
failure, an over current condition in a power
supply, or an out-of-tolerance voltage.
Maj Red: A serious condition exists, such as
an over temperature condition, a fan tray
failure, an over current condition in a power
supply, or an out-of-tolerance voltage.
Min Amber: A serious condition exists, such
as a component failure.

7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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7450 SF/CPM Architecture

The SF/CPM card has two main sections:

Switch fabric

Dual processing complex (DPC)

Switch Fabric
The switch fabric consists of four independent switching elements. The fabric is available at 200
Gb/s full-duplex switching. Each switch fabric element connects to each IOM slot as well as the
DPC of each SF/CPM.
Each switching element of the fabric behaves like a standard crossbar switch, but has the added
ability of allowing each egress port to be scheduled independently of all other ports. This control
over the scheduling of ingress to egress port traffic enables the fabric to guarantee traffic rates
between a given ingress to a given egress port.

Fabric Redundancy
Each switching element (SE) along with its associated serial links is totally independent from all
others. On nodes that have two SF/CPMs, traffic is load shared by both fully operational fabrics.
If a switching element or any of its serial links fail, only traffic that is passing over that link or SE
at the time of the failure is affected. If an SE or any of its links should fail, the fabric is only
degraded by an amount equal to that SE. In most cases this will have no effect on traffic flow as
the switching capacity of each fabric exceeds the total bandwidth needed for all IOMs. This
allows for graceful degradation of a switch fabric rather than catastrophic failure.

Dual Processing Complex

The DPC is made up of three main sections:

Dual processing elements.

A flexible fast path complex.

Shared I/O resources.

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Switch Fabric / CPU Module Architecture

SF/CPM A
Dual Processing Complex A

Switch Fabric A
FRMR M

D
A
MAC M

D
A

10 Gb/s Fabric
Complex Access

SE

SE

SE

SE

10 Gb/s Fabric
Complex Access

I/O Module 1

Four Switching Elements

are used for the
200 Gb/s SF/CPM

MAC M

D
A

10 Gb/s Fabric
Complex Access
10 Gb/s Fabric
Complex Access

I/O Module 10

SE

SE

SE

SE

Four Switching Elements

are used for the
200 Gb/s SF/CPM

NP
MEM

CPU-0

CPU-1

Memory

Memory

Dual Processing Complex B

Switch Fabric B
M
FRMR D
A

TM

FA

FA

TM

NP
MEM

CPU-0

CPU-1

Memory

Memory

SF/CPM B

Under normal operating conditions both Switch Fabrics are load sharing and active,
Initially one CPM complex is active while the second one is in Warm Standby mode
7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

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Dual Processing Elements

The DPC is responsible for the systems control plane and protocol stack processing.
Each of the processing elements in a DPC is made up of a processor, a processor controller, and 1
to 2 GBytes of primary memory. The primary memory is in sockets to allow for field upgrades if
required. Each processing element has full access to all I/O resources and frame data via the
flexible fast path complex on the SF/CPM.
The processing elements used on the DPCs and IOMs share common logic elements.
Flexible Fast Path Complex
Each DPC can send and receive frames through the fabrics of both SF/CPMs in systems with
redundant SF/CPMs. This allows communication to take place between the active and standby
DPCs as well as all IOMs on the node.
The queuing capability of the flexible fast path complex allows each DPC to have non-blocking
access to critical control messages and ensures that the control plane cannot be swamped by
floods of routing or address learning frames or similar Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
Shared Input/Output Resources
The shared I/O resources accessed by the SF/CPM include management Ethernet ports, serial
ports, status LEDs, compact flash sockets (capable of accepting compact flash or disk modules),
system clocks, temperature monitors, fan controls, etc.

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Questions
1. Every 7450 ESS uses a SF/CPM card.
a. True
b. False

2. How many switching elements are on a 200 Gb/s SF/CPM?

a. 8
b. 2
c. 4
d. 10
3. When a 7450 ESS has redundant SF/CPMs, the second switch fabric operates in standby
mode.
a. True
b. False

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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7450 ESS Family SF/CPM Card

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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Answers 9
1. Every 7450 ESS uses a SF/CPM card.
a. True
b. False 3

2. How many switching elements are on a 200 Gb/s SF/CPM?

a. 8
b. 2
c. 4 3
d. 10
3. When a 7450 ESS has redundant SF/CPMs, the second switch fabric operates in standby
mode.
a. True
b. False 3

Section 1 Module 3 SF/CPM

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