topic Re: Interconnect bay rules in BladeSystem - General

Interconnect bay rules

Tom Kunkel — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:49:16 GMT

I wonder if this is a workable configuration for a cheap DR solution with a c7000 chassis:

Bay1 - Flex10

Bay2 - empty

Bay3 - 4Gbps FC pass-through

Bay4 - 4Gbps FC pass-through

Bay 5 - GigE Ethernet Passthrough

Bay 6 - GigE Ethernet Passthrough

I am *hoping* to avoid having to fork out for a second Flex10, as we will not be requiring it.

Re: Interconnect bay rules

OliverAn — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:46:21 GMT

As far as I know the only rule is, that ypou cannot mix technologies (ETH/SAN/VC) in adjacent bays. So your configuration must be supported.

Re: Interconnect bay rules

Matti_Kurkela — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:30:06 GMT

Workable - yes, but you will be missing the functionality of one Flex10 NIC per blade slot.

Half-height blades have two integrated NICs: one of them will be routed to Bay 1, the other to Bay 2.

Full-height blades occupy two blade slots each, so they have four integrated NICs: two routed to Bay 1, and the other two to Bay 2.

If you leave Bay 2 empty, the NICs connected to that bay will be inoperative, but the configuration is workable with that caveat.

I hope you aren't plugging quad-port NIC mezzanine cards to the blades either: the routing for Mezz 2 (and 3 for full-height blades) splits the ports across all four bays 5-8. If you're going for dual-port NICs in Mezz 2, filling only bays 5 and 6 is enough for full functionality.