Blade enclosure not powering up when oa unavailable

[Gaute Bekeng_1]

Hi,
We had a situation that I need some feedback on. We have several blade c7000 enclosures (with 1 oa module), most with Virtual Connect Ethernet modules. While problem shooting an network error, the management vlan that our OA is connected to was removed from the switch. At the same time, due to some other problem shooting situation, the power was cut on the blade enclosure. When power returned, the enclosure would not boot up until the vlan was restored.

We have one enclosure with passthrough modules and when testing the above scenario on that enclosure, it powered on fine even if the oa was not connected to the network.

So to my question, is it by design that an enclosure with virtual connect modules cannot boot up if the oa is unavailable or without network connection? Or can it be a configuration error that caused this? If the latter is the case, what configuration error can cause this?

The oa's and vc domain are all configured with static ip adresses.

[JKytsi]

Strange ...what OA version You are using. few of the lates firmwares have bring fixes to OA behauviour in these kind of issues.

[Paul_637]

I'm interested in feedback on this issue. I've found that, on a number of occassions, when switches have had to be reset for varying reasons, the blades have spontaneously rebooted!

My best guess was that it was due to the OA losing connectivity but, for understandable reasons on a live system, I've been unable to prove it by testing.

I'd love to know exactly what was going on. most of these were on VC 1.3 f/w. The enclosures I'm managing now (in a new role) are currently being upgraded to latest f/w.

Paul

[Gaute Bekeng_1]

This enclosure is on version 2.25.

One theory we have is that the problem might be due to dhcp. I stated that the vc moduels had static ip adresses. I discovered that is not entirely true. The management ip adress is static, but the individual vc moduels seems to be using dhcp. But I cannot figure out how to set static ip adress on the vc modules. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I will greatly appreciate it.

[Raghuarch]

To set VC module with static IP??

Use Enclosure Bay IP Addressing page in OA, got to interconnect bays TAB, Provide the static IP. it should work fine.

Try upgrading the OA to 2.31, it may resolve the issue.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3188465&prodNameId=3188475&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-3c3d6c568638475dbffa486e30

[Gaute Bekeng_1]

Found it, thanks. I was looking at the tcp/ip settings on the virtual connect module. Forgot about Enclosure IP Adressess...

I will test and see if I can reproduce the incident with dhcp and static ip adresses and also test again after upgrading the OA. I'll let you know the results.

[Terri Harris]

Just to clarify normal behavior with a c7000 c-class enclosure & the OA modules.
Although the c7000 will continue to work even when there is no OA installed (or no functioning OA), you will not be able to power up any blades. If you lose connectivity (network) to the OA but the OA is still functioning, you should still be able to power up blades manually.

[Gaute Bekeng]

Terri,
Thansk for the input. You confirmed what I thought was to be correct.

I have tested for the last few days and I'm unable to reproduce the problem. DHCP does not seem to be an issue. What I did was removing the network cable from OA and then pull the power for a couple of minutes. I then put back the power without inserting the network cable in the OA. The servers all booted and was available on the network.

Our theory now is that the network loop, which caused our network admins to remove the vlan, some how caused the oa not to function properly and thus not starting the servers when power was killed and restored. Only when the vlan was restored did the servers power up again. But why would having the vlan back again, fix the oa?

Any thoughts on that theory?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
GB

[Terri Harris]

Is there anything relevant in the OA SysLog at the time the problem occurred?

[Gaute Bekeng_1]

Sorry for the late reply.

The incident happened in the beginning of November while I had just started a 5-week vacation and I cannot find any logs from that period. The logs only seems to contain the last month, unless there is a way to access older logs that I'm unaware of.