I am relatively new to blade servers and have "inherited" a setup comprising 2 BL460c servers, an SB40c storage blade, a PCI expansion blade with a fibre channel HBA in it and a Storageworks Tape loader. One server is partnered with the SB40c and the other is partnered with the expansion blade (FC HBA).
Both servers are running W2K8 32-bit at present with Backup Exec writing to the tape unit.
I would like to install Hyper-V server to virtualise the servers (and add some 64b versions) but don't know whether the fibre HBA can be passed through to a virtual server so I can have a tape backup running on a virtual machine.
Presumably, an alternative would be to have a full install of W2K8 backing up to the tape and Hyper-V role doing VMs but I would prefer it if I could use Hyper-V.
Will the BL460c setup I have work this way or should it be done another way? (Xenserver/VMware?)
>> whether the fibre HBA can be passed through to a virtual server
In Hyper-V - you cannot. Don't know about VMware/etc You even cannot use tape with windows 2008 built-in backup tool, not to mention Hyper-V VM :-)
>> would like to install Hyper-V server to virtualise the servers
You can install Hyper-V on server connected to SB40c, but you will have "performance penalty" if install Hyper-V on second server ! BL460c have only 2 drives .... VM require many I/O, and two drives it is not enough
>>with Backup Exec writing to the tape unit.
Just FYI: With Backup Exec 12.5 you can use Hyper-V agent for backup guest VM and you can backup unlimited number of guest machines on host server with 1 license !
In ESX3, neither. In ESX4 only _some_ adapters are supported for path-through and it only works on the very latest hardware technology.
FC-attached tape drives are not supported on ESX - sometimes it is possible to add a tape / changer SCSI LUN as a pass-through, but don't expect any help if there are problems.
