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Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

 
ProfesseurX
Occasional Contributor

P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

Hi everyone,

 

I did setup a C7000 enclosure this morning and everything went fine. All firmware are up to date. It contains a few ProLiant blades with FC controller installed in mezzanine 1.

 

The backpanel contains 2 Virtual Connect Fibert Channel modules 8Gb/20ports. Their firmawre is the latest (1.43) as well.They are in bays 3 and 4, which correspond to the mezzanine 1 controller in the blades.

 

I also installed a P2000 MSA G3 with 2 FC controllers, setup the IP, updated the firmwares, including the hard drives. Everything is brand spanking new !

 

Now, I connect my VC to the P2000, and.... nothing ! The SFPs are fine (AJ718A from the top of my head), the fibers are OK (I checked with several others). But nothing comes up. The LEDs are blinking on a regular pace on both the VC and the MSA.

 

The VC UI shows that the VC are not connected, and the MSA UI shows a question mark on the links.

 

I tried forcing down the link speed, using an older AJ716A SFP, other fibers, nothing.

 

Am I missing something obvious ? Why won't the link come up ?

 

Any insight could be useful. Thanks a bunch in advance.

 

Xavier

5 REPLIES 5
Michael Leu
Honored Contributor

Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

Hi Xavier

 

Nice Hardware you got there :-)

 

But to get this configuration to work you need a FC switch between the VC FC modules and the MSA.

 

Only with the VC FlexFabric modules there is support for Direct-Attach Support.

See the HP VC FC Cookbook, specifically Page 22

http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01702940/c01702940.pdf

 

Regards,

Michael

ProfesseurX
Occasional Contributor

Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

Thank you Michael.

 

That's exactly what support told me a moment ago. I cannot believe it. We had a problem with the order and now I am stuck.

 

Honestly, I cannot believe that. I'm no expert to FC and SANs, and I really don't understand why it would not be possible to setup a simple point-to-point connection.

 

What would be the cheapest and simplest way to get out of this situation ? Because SAN switch, besides the extra cost, means extra management tasks, and I need this to stay simple.

 

Thanks again.

 

Xavier

Hongjun Ma
Trusted Contributor

Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

Hi Xavier,

 

Virtual Connect Fibre channel implemnation has been NPIV mode all the time so it's uplink is N port instead of F port, that's the reason you can't plug in a storage array(N port) into VC-FC or VC Flexfabric module. With 3.70, VC can directly connect with 3PAR(where VC FC ports will become F port).

 

I haven't tried this before but you may want to check to put a pair of blade FC switch like Brocade or MDS switch into the same enclosure(say I/O slot 5 and 6).  then cable

VC-FC X1---port 1 Brocade FC blade switch port 2-----your storage

 

These switches should like a regular FC switch but with less port(8 since you only will use external ports) so it's cheaper and you don't need power and rack space.

 

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13084_na/13084_na.HTML

 

this maybe sometime you can explore.

My VC blog: http://hongjunma.wordpress.com



ProfesseurX
Occasional Contributor

Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

Thank you for your answer. I think I understand better, now, although I find this too bad... 

 

I eventually went for the simplest switch I could find : HP 8/8 SAN Switch

 

It's for software R&D, and I want someting straightforward for a small set of blades.

Pramod M
Regular Advisor

Re: P2000 MSA G3 FC and VC 8Gb/20ports won't talk to each others

 

This can be resolved by using a FC Pass Through Module, if the storage need to be coonected to a single server. Pass Through module will support Direct attaching of MSA2000fc.

 

Rgds,

Pramod