topic Stacking two Enclosures in BladeSystem - General

Stacking two Enclosures

Ogaily — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:05:46 GMT

Greetings,
I have two Blade enclosures (7000c) and each one has two VC-Eth modules, my question is that can i stack both enclosures using the 10-GbE CX4 Cables ?
Thank you
Regards,
Zaid

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Igor Karasik — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:43:34 GMT

You can do it if your modules are HP 1/10Gb-F Virtual Connect
You cannot do stacking if you have HP 1/10Gb Virtual Connect
See this document for more information:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=3794423&prodTypeId=3709945&objectID=c01724621

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

JKytsi — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:28:40 GMT

You can stack the "normal" modules too. Use CX-4 or 1Gb links. It works.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

JKytsi — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:29:40 GMT

Just remember that that feature is supported only on later firmware revisions. So VC must be updated first.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Adrian Clint — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:30:21 GMT

Just to confirm...
Stacking is there to...
1. Use a limited number of uplinks
2. Let network traffic commnicate within the enclosures. This does not work if you have PRIVATE enabled on the Vnets

This is not the same as a Multi-enclosure domain - which allows you to move profiles between enclosures.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Igor Karasik — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:14:53 GMT

Adrian, Jarkko - thanks for right comments.
I just didn't thought that somebody can do stack between enclosures and not use one VC domain

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Adrian Clint — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:02:39 GMT

Multi enclosure domains need Flex-10 or 1/10Fibre versions in bays 1 & 2 as the 1/10 copper VC modules dont have enough memory to cope with the configuration of more than one enclosure.

I think stacking them requires that you have the same Vnet & SUS configs - you just cant move profiles between enclosures.

The memory issue of the original VC modules is I believe the reason why 2.30 firmware comes in different versions for different SAN virtual connect modules. It cant fit all the possible combinations in the restricted memory.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Ogaily — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:01:24 GMT

Greetings my friends,
I want to thank you all for your help.

What is the supported firmware revision for enabling the stacking?

The reason why I need the stacking so I donâ t have to use external switches to communicate between the servers on the different enclosure. Iâ m thinking of clustering the servers between the two enclosures.
I have created the attached diagrams for the VC-Eth configurations and port mapping and I need your feedback on it.

Thank you.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

JKytsi — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:40:28 GMT

Version 2.30 (latest) enables this ...

Support the ability to connect two VC domains together (SE or ME) by directly connecting their uplinks (no switch in between) to form a private network.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

The Brit — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:23:18 GMT

Good Morning Zaid,
Since I am not a windows or linux type, I cant comment on your clustering plans, (although I'm sure if there is something amiss, someone will comment). I would however offer the following comments,

1. Looking at your attachment, it looks like only APP/WEB1 and APPWEB2 require access to the external network, however you are only showing access via VCEnet Module 1 in each enclosure. So, a failure of either of the modules in Bay 1 would force a failover between APP/WEB1 <--> APP/WEB2 (assuming they are clustered)

2. It also looks like the APP/WEB1 and APP/WEB2 servers each have a "free" nic (NIC4), so why not run an additional uplink from the ENet modules in IC Bay 2 on each enclosure, to the network switch, and team NICs 3 and 4 on the servers. (Note: I believe that NIC4 is hard wired to IC BAY 2 anyway)

With this done, a failure of the ENet Modules in either of the IC Bay 1's would not cause a system/app failover, just a NIC failover.

With the current configuration (as shown), a failure of either of the Bay 1 ENet modules will result in the APP/WEB server in that enclosure being cut off from the network. And, even though the VC Manager will fail over to Module 2, there is no uplink from Module 2.

Hope this is useful.

Dave.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Ogaily — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:06:39 GMT

So from what I read above
Stacking of two enclosure is doable using HP 1/10Gb Virtual Connect if
- using latest firmware Version 2.30
- and having same VC domains.

But HP doesnâ t recommend it, because of the memory issue.

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

JKytsi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:46:12 GMT

HP 1/10Gb Virtual Connect has "thinner" system resources than the two later models.

I have created a multienclosure domain (stacked) from those. And it works, the configuration changes might take a little bit longer but not as near so long than with the Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM)

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

Ogaily — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:02:48 GMT

Hi Jarkko,
When you stacked multiple enclosures, the servers in each enclosure were able to talk with servers in other enclosures without requiring external switches? only through the VC-Eth ???
Thanks

Re: Stacking two Enclosures

JKytsi — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:33:43 GMT

If you update to fw 2.30 You have two options.

A) createa a multi-enclosure domain
- connect (stack) vc-enet modules together
- create a network with no uplinks = private (traffic only inside VC domain)

B) OR with two separate VC domains link vc-enet modules between domains and create a network without uplinks.