what is a fabric extender used for
Port or Fabric? Cisco uses the term fabric extender; port extender is used in the IEEE 802.1Qbh standard. Obviously one is a technology term, the other one a marketing term (or product name). It looks like everything in the Data Center is *Fabric*, everything in WAN is *Borderless*. Slowly I might get used to it. Another explanation I found says âFabric Extender is a standalone implementation of a Port Extenderâ. Iâm not buying it; see the 802.1Qbh introduction (from Cisco) for details; it's very clear they are not talking about a virtualized environment.
Today, in the highlight: FEX pre-provisioning. What is a FEX? It is Fabric Extender, a âremote line cardâ used in Cisco Nexus series switches. It is managed through its parent switch (like Nexus 5000 or Nexus 7000) but looks externally like a traditional data center access switch. In some cases you would like to configure the FEX interfaces before the FEX is actually online.