HP P4000 connected to an HP VC ENet Module

[Mi77]

To my understanding. Virtual Connect allows multiple hosts to share a common Ethernet path to the LAN. That means that in a C7000 full of 16 Blade Servers, these 16 server's pNICs are aggregated to the VC ENet module.

Now my question is, if this is the case, why it's not recommended to connect the P4000 directly to one of these VC ENet ports, when in fact connecting it to one of the ports means that the P4000 can be shared by all 16 hosts, is that correct? Why is it recommended to still connect the P4000 via an external Ethernet switch?

[rick jones]

While a VC Ethernet module looks like a switch to the blades (ie the downlink ports) it does not look like a switch on the uplink ports. It will not "switch" traffic between uplink ports. So, if the P4000 is to be accessed by anything besides the blades there must be an intervening switch.

If you don't actually have need of VC functionality, you could use ProCurve 6120 chassis switches instead - those will indeed "switch" between uplink ports.

[Mi77]

very well said Rick, appreciate the info so much :-)

[rick jones]

Of course, if the blades are the only things needing to access the P4000, or the P4000 has more than one network interface, a workable setup connecting it directly to the VC module likely exists.

[Mi77]

That's what I think so, it limits the connection of P4000 to the Blades in the Enclosure only when we do a direct attach to VC Enet module. Hence, it's still recommended to that a switch is place in the middle for more scalability. Thanks Rick