HP BladeSystem c7000 Virtual COnnect (VC) + Pass-Thru interconnect modules

[chuckk281]

Sanyi had a customer question regarding Pass-Thru interconnect modules:

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Hello All!

Our customer has very special needs and I need some advice whether it is supported or not.

They have a C7000 chassis. They want to put Virtual Connect modules in the interconnect Bay1 and Bay2 and Pass-Thru modules into the Bay3 and Bay4.

The integrated CNA would communicate with the VC moduls and an additional Mezzazine card would connect to the BAY3-BAY4 Pass-Trhu module.

So basically some connection from the Blade would use the VC uplink and some connection would use the Pass-Trhu modul to reach the external environment.

Is that a supported configuration? To connect from a blade to a Pass-Trhu module do we need to use special Ethernet Mezzazine card or any mezzanine will do the job?

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Zoltan had a reply:

Hi, we understand that the CNA’s would be not manageable by the VCs, but what can be see about these not VC-paired CNAs from the VC Management?

Do they appear anyhow in the VC (at least inactive/“grayed”) or not at all?

Could somebody shed some light on this?

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Input from Dan#1:

They would not show up in VC at all.

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Input from Dan#2:

Sometime they show up in VC as being part of the chassis but Not Supported by VC.

I know this is the case for Non VC Switch modules, but not entirely sure on Pass Thrus.

Then in the VC Server Profile you need to account for the way NICs are enumerated and leave blank “Unassigned” entries in the profile for the lines in the profile that equate to Mezz cards attached to Pass Thrus.

If you are not sure, just add a bunch of Unassigned NICs to the Profile (while server is offline obviously) and then assign to the Bay.

Go back into profile and look on the far right at the NIC “Mapping” column.

If you have LOM connected to Flex-10/FlexFabric and Mezz1 is a standard Dual Port NIC, your profile should look like this:

• LOM Port 1 Function A
• LOM Port 2 Function A
• Mezz1 Port 1                             Leave “Unassigned”
• Mezz 1 Port 2                            Leave “Unassigned”
• LOM Port 1 Function B/C (B if no iSCSI or FCoE.  C if you have HW iSCSI or FCoE configured)
• LOM Port 2 Function B/C (same)
• LOM Port 1 Function C/D (etc)
• LOM Port 2 Function C/D (etc)

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Reply from Cullen:

That will work fine.  Any Ethernet mezzanine will work with passthru.

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Other comments or suggestions?