Blade C7000 Gigabit switch question

[JorisK]

Hi everyone,

We currently have running:
Bay 1 and 2 - GB2Ec Ethernet switches
Bay 3 and 4 - Brocade 4/12 FC switches
Bay 5 and 6 - GB2Ec Ethernet switches

My question:
We still have bay 7 and 8 free. Can i use these bays for two GB2Ec switches and make the switch in Bay 5 redundant with the switch bay 7 and do the same with the switches in bay 6 and 8?

Regards!

[JKytsi]

I dont get what do You mean.

bay 1 and 2 make reduntant "pair"
bay 3 and 4 make reduntant "pair"
bay 5 and 6 make reduntant "pair"

bays 7 and 8 can be reached from full height servers mezz slot 3 or with quad port interfaces from mezz2

[JorisK]

Our Blades currently have 4 NICS:

- one from Bay 1
- one from Bay 2
- one from Bay 5
- one from Bay 6

What happens if I insert two extra ethernetswitches in bay 7 and 8?

Currently the switches in Bay 5 and 6 are used by VM's. We want to make them redundant by adding more switches. Is this possible?

[JKytsi]

nothing happens, if You don't add more NICs to servers.

[JorisK]

Currently both mezz slots in all Blades are in use. One slot filled with an QLogic card and one with a quad port Broadcom card.

I guess it is not possible to add more NICs to the Blades?

[JKytsi]

so you have half height blades and quad port NIC?

if the quad port nic is in Mezz slot2 it has access to interconnect bays
5,6,7,8

example
server in bay 8 with quad port nic in mezz slot2 connects to

interconnect module 5 port 8
interconnect module 6 port 8
interconnect module 7 port 8
interconnect module 8 port 8

[JorisK]

Hmm.. that's not quite the situation...

I guess we do not use a quad port nic. Our 460c blades are filled with one QLogic and one Broadcom NIC. This gives us 4 NICS per blade to bay 1,2,5,6.

[JKytsi]

without quad port nic you _can't_ access the interconnect bays 7 and 8 with half height servers.

[JKytsi]

so did this clear things for You ?