Flex-10 servers suddenly missing NICs after 2.31 upgrade

[Magnus von Rosen]

Hi,

we have an issue with a pair of XenServer machine (BL490) which reported a link down (only one of them).
We found that there was an update 2.31 for Virtual Connect that might address this issue, so we upgraded from 2.30 to 2.31.
We have two Flex-10 switches, in slot 1&2.
After the upgrade, the connections to the Xen servers dropped. We can reboot one and when it boots up, it shows that there are no NICs at all! But the Virtual Connect management shows that all is well.
Even tried another bay, tried deleting the server profile and recreating, still no NICs are displayed in the Xen console.

We also have 4 vmware servers in this C7000 enclosure, those are working fine.

The network is on 10Gb fibre in X1, and a 1 GB copper uplink for the management network in X2.

Please help us regain our NICs!

Thanks,
Magnus, Sweden

[The Brit]

Are you still able to communicate with your bl490's from the external network, and vice versa??.

i.e. is this an actual communication issue, or is it a information presentation issue?

Dave.

[Magnus von Rosen]

The Virtual Machines were actually up for a while, but then also went N/A.
In this enclosure we also have 4 vmware ESX4 servers, they have been unaffected the whole time.
It is now 10pm, I'm in the office reinstalling the Xens after moving them to another enclosure (where I had to migrate other servers to make room...).
In this enclosure we have ordinary Cisco 3020 switches, these seem to work better. Just found 4 NICs.

Curse Xen, or Curse Flex-10, I don't know which right now, but I'm so not impressed by Flex-10 lately. It's like a Bugatti Veyron. Very niiice, but not very useful in real life.

/Magnus

[The Brit]

Did it occur to you that the problem might be with XenServer?

Dave

[JKytsi]

This won't help in any way. But we have two enclosures full of BL490G6 running ESX4. I updated to 2.31 with no problems.

[Magnus von Rosen]

Hi,

yes, I may be unfair to complain too much about Flex-10 in this case, we certainly don't like Xenserver either after this.
However, these problems have not happened on our other non-flex-10 Xenservers, and also these servers worked fine right after moving them to the normal networks enclosures.
I should perhaps be more careful when throwing accusations around, but it's clear that Xen and Flex-10 aren't tight friends yet. Either that or we missed something big in the installation of Xen.

Greetings,
Magnus

[Magnus von Rosen]

Jarkko:
I also found it interesting that the 4 ESX-servers in the same enclosure as the Xen's, survived the upgrades and everything without so much as a lost ping.
Goes to show that 20 years of development and hefty licens prices (vmware) gives an advantage to the new free stuff (Xen).
It's always true: You get what you pay for. :)

/M

[The Brit]

By the way, your post intrigued me enough to go look up the Bugati.

16 Cylinder, 1001 hp.
Max speed 253 mph
Endurance at that speed - 12 minutes.

Base Price $1.4M.

I agree with your summary. But I guess if you can afford the price, who cares about the gas.

Dave.

[Scott McGregor]

Did you guys have any luck with this?

When i spoke to hp last they suggested roling back the firmware on the flex10. though this isnt preffered option

[HEM_2]

you need a new XenServer driver for the NICs:

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124995