Correct Method to Power Down C7000 Enclosure

[btstict]

Hi everyone.

The title may seem strange, but after we performed a managed power shutdown of our two C7000 enclosures over Christmas 2013, all of the VirtualConnect FC modules failed (yes, all 4 of them) when we powered the enclosure back up.  24 hours later, we finally managed to get everything back up running on new VirtualConnect modules (thanks to HP Support) So, my question is simple, if we need to power down the enclosures again, how to we do it so that the VirtualConnect cards don't fail.

Thanks

John

[Ken Krubsack]

btstict,

We have 14 C7000 enclosures at 3 sites across our environment.  We really don't do anything special for a poweroff - we shut down all the blades, pop the handles to break the connection to the backplane, and then we just start pulling power supplies out of the front of the enclosures.  When we want the enclosures to come back up, we re-insert the power supplies, and then after the enclosures are up we reseat the blades to make sure they come up in the order and at the time we want them to.  We've never had a problem losing VC's this way.

The one thing we make sure of, obviously, before this is that we have a current backup of the configuration.

I wonder if your enclosures took a power surge or something when they came back up and that's what fried the VC's.  This is why we pull the power supplies - the enclosures will nto see power until we want them to, which is after we're sure the power is stable.

Just some random thoughts.

Ken

[btstict]

Thanks for the response Ken...

The HP Second Line Support Guy who took us through getting the new VC cards from all over the UK (it was New Years Eve when they all went) said he'd seen this before with early VC modules.

Can I just confirm that you pull out the PSUs from the front, and don't actually unplug the IEC cables from the rear?  Can you confirm that you don't unplug the VC modules or disbal them from within OA?

John

[Ken Krubsack]

John,

That's correct - we pull the PSU's from the front.  We have the twin L6-30P power connectors on our blade enclosures as opposed to the 6 C19 connectors, so we'd have to go under the floor to pull the power that way.

And no, we do NOT pull any of the VC's or OA's, or disable anything.

HTH

Ken