Hi
is it possible to get SFP vendor information from CLI?
....I can do it via GUI but can't find the command to display the information in CLI. The information I am looking for would be simular to below (which I got be viewing in the VC GUI) for VC Uplink 2 port X1:
Pluggable Module Information identifier: SFP
ext-identifier: 0x04
connector: LC
vendor-name: AVAGO
vendor-oui: 0x00176A
vendor-part-number: AFBR-703SDZ-HP1
vendor-revision: na
when i try to define ethernet network, I cannot select (tick) " use shared uplink set" under external uplink ports.
what could be the reason of it. "Use Shared Uplink set "box is grayed out
any help/suggestion
Jean-Yves had a MES question:
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Hello All
Just a confirmation and hope an explaination is possible, from Installation guide
We need to have same type of interconnect in MES configuration so
Customer can’t create an MES configuration with Mix up of 10/10-d ? (Flex10 in first enclosure and remaining enclosure populated with 10-d)
Is it still true ? why this restriction since customer can’t order anymore flex10 to build a desired MES configuration
Thanks in advance
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Reply from Fred:
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This restriction is due to port and stacking link differences between the Flex-10 and Flex 10/10D modules.
You can have the customer upgrade the old enclosure to Flex 10/10D. You might investigate outside sources for Flex 10 modules. Or you could configure the new modules in a separate VC domain and direct-connect the old and new domains. If you go with the direct-connect configuration, verify that the failover mode is manual and not auto. That way you can control which path is active on both sides and which is standby.
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Comments?
Zubair had a customer VC configuration to support an Active/Active setup:
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One of my customer having C7000 enclosure equipped with 2 x Flex 10/10D modules. From each Flex 10/10D module one uplink (configured as a SUS, currently having only one uplink cable) is created and link to two different Juniper EX4550 switches.
Both links are active as a separate SUS. At server end NIC teaming will be used (some NIC teaming will be configured Active/Passive and others will be as Active/Active). Below mentioned is the implemented scenario. Is this a supported configuration for VC ?
Customer’s network team has raised their concern about creation of network loop while connecting two VC modules in active/active scenario to Juniper switches, IS this a supported configuration and what configuration should be done on Juniper switches ?
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Reply from David:
VC modules are layer 2 and do not participate in Spanning Tree.
It would not create a loop with bonding/teaming.
The only way that I have heard of loops in the past was with NIC bridging.
We now have in the latest codes NIC loop protections that will shutdown a downlink(to NIC) if VC detects any loops.
And from Brian:
Remember since you are doing the dual SUS route the lower level vnets associated with those sus are separate broadcast domains.
For example
vNET A(vlan100) -> SUS-A
vNET B(vlan100) -> SUS-B
The network guys are assuming the vNET A and vNET B vnets are the same vlan inside of Virtual Connect. However they are not. When traffic leaves those vlans and go up to their SUS they will get a VLAN 100 tag but internally they are different entities. In fact to communicate between VNET A and VNET B a packet must leave the VC module and go up and then come back down (hairpin turn)
My rule of thumb is that if your environment is mostly server to server traffic in the chassis\domain then an active\passive sus design is better because you will keep more traffic in the chassis. (Plus it’s simpler to implement) If your traffic is mostly server to the rest of the datacenter than an active\active design is better as it improves overall chassis throughput. With the insane amount of bandwidth available now I am seeing more and more customers go the single SUS route…
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Comments?
Torben was looking to support a customer move:
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I have a customer that are going to move a lot of blades from enclosures with Virtual connect defined WWN to enclosures configured to use Factory defined WWN
Is it possible to get the factory wwn of the CNA, before moving the servers, so they can prepare San Zoning.
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Reply from Dave:
As VC modifies the actual CNA and HBA with its virtual MAC and WWNs, I would guess we do not have a way to pull this info until the server is shut down and profile removed.
That being said if they have time they could shut it down, remove the profile w/virtual WWN and then assign a profile created to use factory defaults before they move the blade.
There might be a chance that the CNA /HBA vendor might have a tool to look at the factory WWNs?
Input from Angel:
I think that you can use the OEM utility to see the physical WWN and the logical WWN:
Info from Fred:
We just went through this with one of our customers with Emulex HBAs in their blades.
Very challenging to run OneCommand when you don’t already have it somewhere on the network (e.g. in our case vCenter plug-in).
Assuming Emulex is your HBA of course …
Might be best to just let VC assign a factory WWN via the profile method and let the VC module put the HBA back to factory WWN.
Then verify the factory assigned WWN is in place, move the blade(s) and you are done.
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Comments?
Paul was looking to help a customer with some automated backups:
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I have a customer that periodically runs a script to backup his Virtual connect domain configs. He informs me that each time a new version of VC firmware is installed some minor changes are made to the CLI commands.
He is asking if there is another way of automating the backup of the configs. Any suggestions are appreciated.
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Input from Vincent:
What kind of changes ? There are 2 ways to get VC domain backups via CLI: the VCM CLI you ssh into and run the command save configbackup, and VCSU with the action configbackup. A quick glance at the documentation for either method didn't reveal any change for these commands over the last couple of years or so.
Reply from Paul:
Can these methods be scripted for MES and multiple single enclosure domains?
Reply from Fred:
Yes, this works for multi-enclosure stacked domains as well as single enclosure domains. In the case of “multiple single-enclosure domains” you’d back up each of the domains individually.
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Comments?
Hello,
one of my customers have a existing c7000 with two HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Enet Modules.
The VC Modules should be connected to new Enterasys 10GB/s Core Switches. Each Module to a seperate Switch.
Because each Module should be connected with 4x 10GB/s Cables i have to configure a LACP LAG on the Enterasys Switches.
The Switch-Admin asked what he should configure on the Switches.
Because i did not find a whitepaper how i should configure a trunk on a enterasys switch, i am searching for a official HP statement which i can give to the Switch-Admin.
How far i know he should configure a (active) LACP LAG, right?
Are there any other things he should know or configure?
Thanks for any help!
Kind Regards
Marco
I went through 'iSCSI Cookbook for HP Virtual Connect' and understood that we can use OCM/BACS in windows for Accelerated iSCSI with iSCSI HBA. Also clear details available for Vmware configuration and testing.
Now we need more clarity on specific steps for using Accelerated iSCSI in RHEL/SLES. Please do confirm if it is not applicable in RHEL/SLES. Would be great if someone throws light on us.
Our business requirements and risk assesment is driving us to split our 4-enclousure VC domain into separate, single-enclosure VC domains. We don't mind the additional management overhead, but welcome the mitigated risk of a catastrophic VC domain failure (which we somewhat experienced a few years ago during a VC firmware upgrade).
We have a pair of demo enclosures (courtesy of our HP sales rep) and for the external "stacking" backbone we purchased a pair of HP 5820X L3 switches with 24x 10Gb interfaces. The only traffic we intend on pushing through these switches is vMotion network traffic and maybe VMware FT traffic (if we ever decide to enable it). All other LAN traffic goes straight to our Core network switches and SAN traffic goes through our FC Interconnects.
Our intial testing looked promising. We went through the motions of disjoining one of the enclosures from the two-enclosure test VC domain. On the separated enclosure, we created a new domain, with new vNets, new uplink sets, new server profiles, and etc. All generally mirrored off of the former master enclosure, with different addresses of course.
We added a new shared uplink set and put the vMotion network VLAN on it, plugged that inerface (X4 on each pair of Flex-10 interconnects) to the HP 5820Xs.
During the first phase of testing we fired up ESX hosts on both enclosures. Both hosts are cluster members in ESX and share similar configurations. We initiated a vMotion of a test VM from one host to the other, zip zap, with not even a single ping loss it was successful. The sysadmin war-room erupts in cheers, handshakes, cigar lighting, then I suggested to test it again but with a simulated switch failure (one of the HP 5820Xs). So I shut down interfaces on one of the switches, then we tried vMotion again... the task just sat there until it timed out with an error.
THE FIX: So after playing around with vNIC settings in ESX, we decide to enable Beacon-Probing on the vMotion network in ESX. Boom... this allowed ESX to auto-failover between the available paths. The vMotion worked flawlessly, even when I shut down a path mid-task, it would complete the vMotion with a short delay using the other available path.
The second phase of testing involved doing a vMotion within the same enclosure... THIS is where we noticed the second issue. The task itself worked, but it is extremely slow compared to the same task of moving a VM enclosure-to-enclosure. To give you an example, it took appox 25 seconds to vMotion a VM between enclosures versus approx over 2 minutes for the same task, same VM between hosts in the same enclosure.
THE FIX: Turn off Beacon-Probing on the vMotion network in ESX... This resulted in vMotion tasks returning back to normal speeds, but brought us back to the original problem that we discovered during the first phase of testing...
So, how can we have our cake and eat it too?
There must be a correct way of configuring this kind of setup. HP supports multi-VC Domains, I would assume that they considered designs where customers needed to live-migrate between VC domains.
If you think you know the answer but need more detail, please let me know, I'll diagram the heck out of things for you.
Thanks!
I have searched for a download of a Virtual Connect Backup Converter utility. I want to take the backup of an existing enclosure, modify the file to be able to import it into another new enclosure. Does this utility still exist?
Thanks
Wasn't it hp internal only?
Consider to ask hp support!
A Virtual Connect question from Zdravko:
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On the picture is shown diagram of deployment which we are trying to implement using HP C7000 Chassis with 2 HP Flex 10 and HP Proliang 460c Gen 8 with VMware ESXi on it.
On Vmware we have approximate 126 VLANs, and Nexus 1000v as a DVS. We’ve tried two scenarios to worked this out.
Scenario 1:
We’ve configured VC connect Domain with vNet in Tunnel mode. In this scenario, the upstream network switch is configured to pass multiple VLANs to two ports on each VC module. The upstream switch ports is configured as “trunk” ports (using LACP) for several VLANs. However in this Scenario we’ve experienced partial or total loss of connectivity for servers in VLANs which are in “bridged-transparent” mode by F5 LB.
We believe we have encounter a scenario described in: http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?calledBy=&ac.admitted=1410467226755.876444892.492883150&docId=emr_na-c02684783-2&docLocale=
Scenario 2:
According to recommendation we’ve disabled tunneling of VLAN tags and implemented map VLAN tags instead with Shared Uplink Set. With this, problem with loss of connectivity was solved.
However again we’ve encounter another limiting factor for scalability, number of VLANs – 162 Unique Server Mapped VLAN; now we are using 126. (http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03278211 – page 4). This scenario is unacceptable since we have growth plans of nearly triple in next 4 years, so we might hit the limit of 162 VLANs very soon. We use this HW for private/custom Cloud solutions, and every customer is a separate VLAN, or a possible tweak/workaround to scenario 1 so that we don’t encounter those problems?
Is there another recommended/supported deployment for our Scenario using HP Flex 10, which does not have above limitation/problems?
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Input from Dan:
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First off, you cannot use LACP to Aggregate 2 uplinks from different Flex-10 modules as their picture and text describes. LACP requires that the ports on each side terminate in the same switch. Each VC module is considered a different switch. So if they only have 1 uplink from VC Bay 1 and 1 uplink from VC Bay 2, they need to delete the Port Channel interface from the Cisco side.
As far as the Customer Advisory, you need to confirm with them if they are using 2 VLANs or just 1 for their Load Balancer.
There were some VLAN enhancements in 4.30, but if they are truly USING 126 VLANs on each server, then these enhancements won’t help them break the 162 barrier.
The enhancements are such that you can plumb more than 1000 VLANs into VC Mapped Mode as long as the servers are using less than 162 per port and the total in use per VC Domain is less than 1000.
In a pinch, an alternative might be Broadcom NPAR with a 6125XLG instead of Flex-10.
I would have them test that though before they make the decision to switch.
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Other comments?
I'm relatively new to VC-Flex... I'm working in the repair shop and I have to test some VC-Flex10d modules. I managed it to establish a link between two servers in two blade enclosures. Fo far so good...
But I can't get a working link between the VC-Flex and any other ethernet device (a switch for example). I don't have a 10GB switch to play with but I assume that the VC 10GB ports can also handle a 1GB link and thep down. Or am I wrong??
I have a 10GB Short Range SFP+ in both VC modules. Port speed ist set to AUTO.
Do I need special "VC compatible" switches for that?
Hi,
The VC Flex-10/10D quickspecs does not state any restrictions on switches compatiblity for uplink connectivity. Any combination of 1Gb and 10Gb cables can be used to interconnect the Virtual Connect Modules.
However the following provides recommended configurations (note that a built-in 10Gb link is provided between modules in horizontally adjacent bays).
Supported cable lengths on 10Gb uplinks are 3 to 15 meters and supported 10Gb stacking links (connecting between two HP Virtual Connect Ethernet Modules) are 0.5 to 7 meters.
Interconnecting the modules allows all Ethernet NICs on all server blades in the Virtual Connect domain to have access to any Virtual Connect uplink port.
By using these module-to-module links, a single pair of uplinks can be used as the data center network connections for the entire Virtual Connect domain, and allows any server blade to be connected to any Ethernet network.
Regards,
Vijayasarathy
Looking at the specs comparing the HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10 Gb/24-port Module to the
HP Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D Module, it appears the Flex 10/10D module only supports 10GbE uplinks
HP Virtual Connect and networking for BladeSystem
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA4-8302ENW.pdf?ver=4
I also notice in the qucikspecs between the two modules, the FlexFabric 10Gb/24 has an option SFP+ RJ45 module available, and the Flex-10/10D doesn't offer this option
Hi,
Has anybody automated the HP OA Board and VC-Flex configuration backup using scripts/ssh? If you have a sample scripts available for both OA Board and VC-Flex, that would be great.
I was trying to backup the VC-Flex configuration using a script, but it fails. If I manually execute the same command in a SSH session, it is successful.
When using script I get the following response: "ERROR: Operation failed", and when I run the same command manually in SSH session I get "SUCCESS: Config backup transfer completed"
The command I'm using is:
save configbackup address=sftp://user:password@host/new-vc-config-backup
Thanks!
P.S. This thread has been moved from HP BladeSystem to HP BladeSystem Virtual Connect. - Hp Forum Moderator
That would explain why no other connection works since I don't have a 10GB switch here...
Hi all,
Query #1 - I have read a couple of posts around converting post 3.60 virtual connect domains from Legacy VLAN capacity mode to Extended VLAN capacity mode, and from what I understand, the procedure is painless- no need for reboots of any servers or I/O modules is necessary- the ability just goes right into effect. I would first like to try and confirm that my understanding in this matter is correct, so that is question #1.
Query #2- I also am wondering about existing server profiles in said VC domain. Once the domain is running in Extended mode, will my existing server profiles instantly have the extended capabilites without any changes or reboots or what have you?
It does support 1Gb connections, but you'll need one of the following SFPs.
HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect 1G SFP SX Transceiver PN: 453151-B21
HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect 1G SFP RJ-45 Transceiver PN: 453154-B21
I am an HP Employee
Ken
I have seen this issue only with ESXi 5.5 so far, Eirik gave the exact solution.
