HP c3000 Enclosure +4x BL460c G7 + Hyper-V +P2000 G3 SAS = confusion..... :o(

[Whitestar261]

Hello,

After our existing Hyper-V server cluster atarted going belly up, we looked into getting a blade system to consolidate our old ML350G5s. We have a c3000 enclosure and were very happy with it, setting up Hyper-V, and we looked forward to playing around for ages ensuring that we could use clustering to fail over correctly etc. Unfortunately, Real World (tm) kicked in and decided to kill two of our ML350s a little bit early.
We migrated our VMs onto a cluster of three BL460c G7 happily enough, and all was fine until it comes to a reboot of a host or a total enclosure restart, at which point the NICs in the blades seem to get all mixed up and go into "Trunk" mode in Hyper-V, causing the blade to lose connection to the cluster, and stays that way until we set the NIC back to "Access" mode...

A little bit more information... we have :

2x HP 6Gb SAS BL Switches, connected to our P2000 G3 (dual controller, redundant) working happily.
2x HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch (One not logically connected since we don't have the Mezz cards to provide complete redundancy yet)

Our Blade Hyper-V Hosts are each running W2008R2 Server Core, connecting to a CSV.

Our problem comes with the networking of the blades to the enclosure and out to the Layer 2/3 switches to the outside world.

We really cannot work out the best way to do this without having to further invest almost 30% of the cost of our "complete system" into Virtual Connect. HP's documentation is seemingly geared up to selling VC exclusively.

Can anyone provide us with a pointer to any resources out there which would be suitable for our particular set up? I've been offered training by HP but the course they suggest seems to travel down the VC route, and I really cannot spare the budget for that. I really would be obliged for any help anyone can give.

Thanks

Derrick

[Whitestar261]

And still, after another three months, we are struggling to get this very expensive paperweight to do what it was supposed to do. Lessons learned?

1) Don't listen to resellers

2) Ask to see one of these systems working in your exact setup before agreeing to ordering anything.

3) When you do go to see vendors, ensure they don't just try to sell you VMWare.

4) Give up IT and start growing cabbages for a living.

That's all the advice I can give.

Cheers