Priority Flow Control in Procurve 3800/5400 Switches?

[n3tm1n]

Hello,

Currently setting up an MS Hyper-V environment with 1/10GB-T NICs that support RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access), According to this linked Hyper-V and RDMA document, it states that the switch must support Priority Flow Control. Question is, Does the Procurve(which we have 3800/5400) lines support PFC? I know it supports QOS, but not sure of PFC.

Thank you,

Bob

[Sietze Reitsma]

Priority Flow Control is a Datacenter Bridging (DCB) protocol. So you will find the protocol typically in datacenter focused switches like the HP 5700, 59xx, 7900, 11900 and 12900 series. 

[n3tm1n]

Thanks,

Follow up:

Question regarding how hp determines what a SMB business is. Does it see SMBs as small business that
don't utilize Virtualization technologies and do not utilize NAS/SAN solutions in conjuction? It looks like the procurve
line (which we have used for 10+ years is targeted at SMB) don't have features to support modern Virtualization
environments. Meaning their forced to pay for Overpriced switches (hp/cisco/juniper,etc) just to effectively and effeciently manage vitualization environments.

[Vince-Whirlwind]

The way you should probably place HP switches is as follows:

Access switches: Procurve 2530, 2920, 3500, 3800 or 5400

Core switches: H3C 11000 or 12000

Data centre switches: H3C 5800 or 5900 (I haven't seen 5700 & 7900 yet, but this is where they go)

Supporting (among other things) modern virtualisation features is the reason HP acquired 3Com and added the 3Com technologies to its inventory in order to provide those features.

Your environment 10 years ago didn't have virtualisation. Your environment has now evolved. So has HP.

I've bought 5800 & 5900s, I think they're super cheap compared with any Cisco alternative, and they IRF.

[n3tm1n]

Thanks for the reply Vince.

I do understand why hp purchased H3C, but I'm sure there  are a lot of customers that have existing ProCurve infrastructure (Such as my case with 6600-48XG, 5400 and 3800 switches) that could use these technologies without having to rip and replace (sorry but Provision - Comware is rip and replace) equipment, and with limited budgets.

Also, since it looks like they're still developing ProCurve switches (5400R recently) I had hopes they would start support DCB/CEE.

Thanks,

Bob

[Vince-Whirlwind]

I agree it isn't much fun having to add 3COM devices to a Procurve network, giving you multi-vendor network infrastructure, and I'm flabbergasted that instead of changing the awful 3COM CLI to be more like Procurve, they are doing the opposite (?!?!?!WHY?).

However, that said, anybody serious about their network Core and datacentre wouldn't have been putting Procurves in there anyway - they would have a Procurve access layer with Cisco 6500s and Nexus in the DC.

H3C allows you to have reliable, functionality-rich switches in the DC without having to submit to the Cisco rip-off. Plus, much as the Commware CLI is a truly awful experience, the functionality in Commware is absolutely fantastic. (Except for stuff like "hybrid" VLANs - I mean, What?).