Trying to understand Blade Virtual Connect NIC mapping?

[Brian Proteau]

I'm new to Blade and still trying to wrap my head around Virtual Connect. We have

1-C7000 Chassis
2-BL620c G7 Full Height Server Blades (currently Bay-1 and Bay-8)
1-HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-port Module (would have a 2nd in production)

(1)If I loaded the chassis with 8-FH Blades or 16-HH Blades, could I get buy with only 2-Flex Fabric Modules and still utilize all Server Blade NICs? The way I'm reading this c7000 hardwired backplane, it doesn't seem I could. Haven't really found a picture that clicks.

(2) See attched picture of the Blade in Bay-1: So this particular Blade has 4 NICs, each can be carved into 4-Flex NICs for a total of 16 correct?

(3) See "Connected To" field: I assume because I only have 1-FlexFabric in Bay-1(rear), I can only use NIC1 and NIC4 correct for this Server Blade?

(4) In the "Connected To" field, what do the (9) and (1) next to the Bay numbers refer to.

[The Brit · Accepted solution]

Brian,
First, Welcome.

1. Yes. The onboard NIC's (LOM's) on all blade models, map to Interconnect bays 1 & 2 (on a c7000). Odd Numbers to Bay 1 and even numbers to bay 2.

2. Yes. Each flex NIC can be cut into 4 Virtual NICs.

3. Correct, with only one IC module in Bay 1, you will only get 2 connections, (NICs 1 and 3 (not 4)).

4. The numbers 9 & 1 indicate the "downlink"s which are used between the blades and the interconnect modules. If you look at the blade in Bay 8, it should indicate downlink paths 16 & 8, (I think)

Hope this helps.

Dave.

[Zygmunt Krawczyk]

You can find more info about Flex-10:

HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology: Convergence with FlexFabric components
http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01608922/c01608922.pdf

[Brian Proteau]

This helps alot. Thanks for both your replies.

[Emil Velez]

In addition to being able to create the virtual nics from each physical nic the virtual connect module allows you to virtualize the MAC address, WWID and serial number of the blade. So if you replaced the blade with another blade that normally would have new MAC addresses and serial number It will not change if you assign the same profile to the new blade. This way you can replace a blade without having to coordinate with SAN team or network team since the MAC addresses and WWIds do not need to change since they are assigned to the blade by the Virtual connect profile.

This is a major power of virtual connect.

[Vivek_Pendse]

Also, ensure that you are running with fw version 3.18 for VC, where many of the earlier knows issues have been addressed.