Boot from SAN with Flex-10, LeftHand SAN, and BL490c

[Bill Hallinan]

Is it possible at this time to boot a BL490c from a LeftHand SAN in an enclosure configured with a VC Flex-10 interconnect?

If not, will it be possible with the next release of VC Flex-10?

[Niels Vejrup Pedersen]

Not possible, since there is not iscsi hba bios on the nc532i nics.

You would need the QMH4062 iscsi hba for this config.

Regards

[Bill Hallinan]

If one or the other NIC is enabled for network boot in BIOS, then upon rebooting one can press control-s to configure the NIC bios for iSCSI initiators.

What is confusing is this document (July 2009). It indicates that boot from san is possible, but not with a Flex-10 interconnect. Has the inability of the Flex-10 to allow blades to boot from a LeftHand SAN been resolved as of this date?

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00846707/c00846707.pdf

[Adrian Clint]

Bill,
Its nothing to do with the Flex-10 Interconnect. It's that the Flex-10 capable NICs cant do it.
I believe you can purchase the iSCSI boot NIC as mentioned above in a mezzanine slot and connect that to a VC 1/10 module and then stack the VC 1/10 thru the Flex-10.
Not checked the support matrix but I dont see anything wrong with that.

[Vincent Berger]

Sorry Adrian, I beg to differ. The NC532i/m do have iSCSI hardware capability but we lack the capability to turn it on when a Flex-10 port is carved into 4 FlexNICs. This is still true as of today.
Regarding the QMH4062, note that you need the hardware version launched yesterday with a part number ending in -B22 to make it work with Virtual Connect (any model)

[Adrian Clint]

Vincent - you are the one I would ask if I am stuck so I concur to you.
I knew the answer was no - just wrong on the reason.

[Bill Hallinan]

Thank you all for your comments. Vince, do you know if there are any firmware upgrades in the works to Flex-10 to allow iSCSI Boot from SAN? Also, if a one Flex-Nic was configured with one porta at full 10 GB band width, would this might work for boot from SAN? I'll try it for grins and see what happens.

[Bill Hallinan]

I tried with multiple configuratons and came close, but no cigar. I'll install an SSD for now and will update this thread if we meet with any success in future attempts.

[Vincent Berger]

Yes, that's normal: as soon as you connect a FlexNIC, even at 10Gb, the other 3 FlexNICs will be present even if unconnected and that's enough to prevent turning on the iSCSI function. It's only when the Flex-10 port falls back to a single 1Gb NIC because it's connected to a 1Gb interconnect that you can turn iSCSI on.
For the other part of your question, I'd suggest you contact your HP representative if you want to discuss future.

[TarunJain]

Hi Bill,
That would be very helpful.