Virtual Connect sanity check in regards to private \ non-private network

[chuckk281]

Eirik had a customer question:

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I had a customer ask me a question the other day that I am not entirely sure about, hopefully someone knows the capabilities of the VC.

Scenario :

Server X (Fileserver) speaks to server Y (Terminalserver), server X speaks on vlan 1110, server Y speaks on vlan 1120, for the communication to happen, does the traffic leave the VC-module ?

None of the Ethernet networks are defined as private.

In other words, does the VC do routing on the VLAN level or does the communication have to leave the VC, go upstream, come back, pass the VC and return to the neighbor blade?

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Input from Kant:

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Virtual Connect is pure L2 bridge with East/West aka local switching based on L2. All routing  level  requirements should be addressed by L3 switch or router. This has been documented in “HP Virtual Connect: Common Myths, Misperceptions, and Objections”,  look for #18 VC Ethernet doesn’t provide Layer 3 routing capabilities.

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So, in Eirik's customer case, the traffic would have to travel to the upstream switch. If the customer had just a single VLAN defined, say VLAN#1120 and both servers used this VLAN for communication and the VLAN#1120 never went to an upstream switch, then the 2 servers would communicate without the need of an upstream switch.