Questions around stacking of VC modules and downtime.

[chuckk281]

Rick had a customer question:

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I have a customer with one enclosure with 2 original 399593-B22’s. He is wanting to buy a new enclosure and do stacking so that his existing VLAN’s can be brought into both enclosures.

I understand I need to at least install two 447047-B21’s (VC 1/10-F) modules to support the enclosure stack (more internal memory on the F module).

Is there any downtime for the first enclosure to do this if I just simply add the F modules to the new enclosure and stack them? I’m thinking that the F module would need to become a primary to control the stack ? Is there considerable things to do there ?

Also, could we introduce the VC-Flex 10 to control the stack instead of the 1/10-F module ? I’m assuming yes, just havn’t done this yet and double checking ….

I’m thinking of using Flex 10 just because his original enclosure is filled with G5 blades only using 2 x NICS per blade so I can’t fully utilize F-10 there, however the new enclosure will bring in some virtualization where I can use more NICS per blade.

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Ken had some answers:

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The 1/10-F modules won’t automatically become the master.  There is no way to do this without downtime.

The steps to do this is:

• Back up the VC domain on the existing enclosure
• Down the enclosure
• Replace the VC 1/10 modules with VC 1/10-F modules
• Restore the VC domain
• Import the 2^nd enclosure

This will work with Flex-10 modules as well as 1/10-F.

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Hope this helps. Let us know if you have other input or suggestions.

[The Brit]

Actually, I believe that if you are replacing 1/10Gb with the 1/10Gb-F then you can do a rolling upgrade, i.e. remove the current "standby" and replace with a 1/10Gb-F, wait until the two modules have synched up, then failover the remaining 1/10Gb and replace that one with the 1/10Gb-F.

Understand I am not proposing that you do this, I just have a recollection that this is possible.    It might be worth checking out if downtime is an issue for your site.

If you are upgrading to Flex10 modules then you must follow the procedure given in the earlier post.

Dave.