vCenter Heartbeat with HP BL490c and Virtual Connect Flex-10

[Amr Mostafa Sadek]

Hello All,

This week we are installaing VMware vCenter 4.1 on a BL490c G6 blade server. The installation went with no problems.
The c7000 enclosure have a VC Flex-10 Ethernet module. No problem with vNets or Server Profiles.
However -and here is the trick- there is another vCenter server (same model, same enclosure) to be installaed for high availability using VMware vCenter Heartbeat (Active / Standby mode).
During the installation of the Secondary (Standby) Server, the installation wizard asks to Disconnect all Network cables, and strongly note that disabling the NIC is not sufficient, and that i must physically disconnect the cable from the server's NICs.
How can that be achieved? I thought of deleting the port from the VC Manager but that also can not be performed unless the server is powered off, and i need to proceed with the wizard.
Any ideas?

Thanks a lot in advace.

Amr

[Steven Clementi]

Is this to not allow the server to talk on the network.. perhaps to the other server?

if so, then just create a dummy network profile, assign it to the nic ports in the VC Manager and run the wizard.


or leave them "unassigned".

Can you post a screenshot of the wizard?


Steven

[Amr Mostafa Sadek]

Yes it is but the "disconnect NIC" appears late in the wizard. The profile needs to be assigned beacause earlier in the process the 2 servers need to communicate with each other.
To make it clearer, During the installation of the Primary server, it takes a system state backup then transfers it to the Secondary server for Restore.
And applies a packet filter software and disables NetBIOS names to avoid duplicate names on the network.

Attached is a screenshot

[Steven Clementi]

From what I remember of the VC Manager... you can not change a mapping while the server is online.. but I think you can change the profile it uses...

If you were to create a second dummy profile with the nics "unassigned", maybe that would be sufficient. I'll try to test it out in my lab.. not sure if that would work.


Steven

[Amr Mostafa Sadek]

Hello Steven,

Did it work with you? have you got any workaround for that task to be completed?

Thanks for your efforts.