Verify iSCSI Boot with Qlogic HCA (QMH4062) and Cisco 3020s

[chuckk281]

Chris was looking to help a customer with an iSCI boot question:

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Hello,

Customer is looking to boot BL460 G7s from iSCSI for an ESX environment using the QLOGIC iSCSI HCA (QMH4062) in Mezz 2 with a pair of Cisco 3020’s for interconnect bays 5 & 6.  Judging by Quickspecs it looks like this is an acceptable and compatible configuration.

Anything I should be aware of here?  Would hate for this to hit the customer and not work.

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Ken replied:

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It should work fine.

Why not use the iSCSI boot capability of the embedded FlexFabric adapter.  It would greatly reduce complexity, and cost, and give them the advantages of stateless servers when used with Flex-10 modules.

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Chris answered:

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Would love to get them in to FlexFabric but this is an existing chassis that already has QTY 4 of 3020s.

I proposed to the customer that we could ‘future proof’ them by replacing the 3020s. 

Thank you for the assistance Ken.  Much appreciated.

One last question:  Can we plug a P4500 directly to a Cisco 3020 skipping the Top-of-Rack (TOR) switch?

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Ken replied:

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Yes you can. No problems there.

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Any other questions or suggestions?