VCM-OA Communication Down on FW v3.60

[Avi]

Hi,

Please check all the VC downlink port statistics from Bay1/bay2 & look for Dot3InPauseFrames. If you notice any high number of Dot3InPauseFrames. Refer the below advisory :

Advisory: (Revision) HP Virtual Connect - Servers Transmitting Excessive Pause Frames May Cause Virtual Connect Uplink Port To Experience Channel Flapping, Stacking Link Removal and Server Communication Loss:

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?spf_p.tpst=kbDocDisplay&spf_p.prp_kbDocDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c02623029-3%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

Get the NIC Firmware/driver updated to the recommended version listed in the advisory. You can also check the below advisory.

Advisory: HP ProLiant Servers - HP NC55x Network Adapters Using Firmware Older Than Version 4.1.450.7 May Experience Continuous Pause Frames :

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSeriesId=4324629&prodTypeId=329290&objectID=c03650833

Notice: BladeSystem c-Class Server Blades: NC532i/NC532m Network Adapters - Optimizing Network Performance Under Windows Server When the MTU is Set to 5000 Bytes (or More) and PAUSE Frames Are Enabled :

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01843038&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=101&prodSeriesId=2510357&prodTypeId=3709945

Regards,

Avi

[Psychonaut]

In my lab domain I upgraded to 3.71/3.75 and am still seeing the error.

[koilerman]

Wondering if any of the folks experiencing this have found a resolution? We're experiencing the same problem with VC FW 3.70/OA FW 3.60 in an environment with 3 linked chassis. Interestingly enough, we have a test environment with 2 chassis and the same FW versions that has never experienced the issue.  Both have inter-chassis stacking links setup per the best practices guides, etc.

I was thinking of upgrading both OA/VC FW, but it sounds like VC FW 3.75 still exhibits the issue.  We've got an open case with HP at the moment and yesterday they swapped an OA (problem still occurred last night, after the swap.)

Has anyone tried VC FW4.01?  This seems a bit to early for a production release, but we need this issue resolved.  As stated earlier in the thread - the majority of the time this has no impact on the blades.  The one time it did impact things it tore down an entire Oracle RAC cluster :(

[didwenger]

What fixed the problem for us was to upgrade all chassis to v3.70 and all the blades (FW + Drivers) to the corresponding SPP (2012.10) version. For ESX servers I have looked at the Solution Recipe documents from HP-VMware to make sure all firmware/driver versions are aligned.

I have to say it's been very stable for months now.

Good luck!

[koilerman]

Upgrading the OA FW to v3.70 seems to have fixed it.

Thanks!

[Dan Giberson]

We are still seeing this as well on different platforms. We see this on a VC 1/10 platform that is updated to 3.60 as well as a 3.70 Flex 10 platform. On my 1/10 platform all of the VC's disconnect and reconnect from the network.  So for HP and Cisco have found nothing to suggest a cause. No Pause Frames, and NLP is disabled. No duplicate IP's either.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.