ProCurve 6600ml-24xg and Direct Attach SFP+

[A. Alpar]

I have a 6600-24xg (J9265A) that is refusing to use our 3rd party 10Gb SFP+ DACs. We have 3 brands in house, Molex, Amphenol, and Tyco. All work with a mix of Intel and Cisco hardware, none work with any of our 6600 ProCurve switches.

Oddly the Intels will give link-lights when attached to the ProCurve hardware, but the ProCurves won't (link-light only on one end).

I can only guess that the switches are refusing to work with non-HP transceivers on the DACs.

Is there some way to have the switch ignore the IDs on the transceivers?

- Aaron

[Mohammed Faiz]

If you have a look at the switch logs you should see an error regarding the compatibility of the sfp. HP switches will only work with HP transceivers

[A. Alpar]

The switch does accept DAC cables without any errors or warnings (we set sensitivity to "medium"). I get a link-light on the Intel device, but no lights at all on the HP (no fault, no link). I can ping the switch, packets are sent, but the 6600-24xg refuses to respond.

Yes, the HP's website states that non-HP transceivers are not "supported". I'm reading "supported" meaning that HP will not answer support calls for problems arising from non-HP transceivers and cables.

I also contacted HP for clarification on their policy toward non-HP transceivers and cables. HP stated that other cables and transceivers do work, but cannot supply any information as to brands, models that do work or how to make them work with the switch.

Is this not the case in your experience? Is it not simply a case of configuration?

[A. Alpar]

Does HPs 6600 check the IDs on the DAC?

I thought this practice was given up awhile back?

We have about new 4 6600s + other procurve in production and are stepping the network up to 10Gb for our servers. I would prefer to keep the installed hardware in production - if the HPs require HP SFP+ cables we will need to rip the 6600s out. I can't justify the price difference nor the extra hassle of keeping cables around just for the HPs.

Some clarification on HP's policy would help so we can figure out what direction we need to go.

[Mohammed Faiz]

I can't comment on the DAC's as I only have genuine versions of those but my experience with non-HP branded mGBICs is that with the newer versions of firmwre for the various switches they do not work and you see a corresponding message regarding that in the event logs.
Although the behaviour you've seen does seem like they should work (with a link light at one end) the fact that you have several different cables of different brands and none of them work suggest that it is a compatibility issue.
There isn't any configuration that I'm aware of that is required (I don't think you can change the port speed on a 10Gbe port) and as long as the port is enabled you should see a link up.
Is it worth borrowing a HP DAC from your suppliers to allow you to test?

[rick jones]

I have asked some contacts in ProCurve land, and the response has been that only the HP DACs listed as supported will work, there is no "works but not supported" possibility:

Supported, known to work -> warm fuzzies all around
Supported, not known to not work -> an HPite may be in trouble
Supported, known to not work -> an HPite is in trouble
Unsupported, known to work -> lucky today, unlucky tomorrow?
Unsupported, not known to not work -> there but for the grace of Turing
Unsupported, known to not work -> no, it was not deliberate ;-)

They pointed at: http://www.hp.com/rnd/support/faqs/10-GbE-trans.htm#question3

[A. Alpar]

Thanks for the feedback! That's too bad. Other vendors gave up restricting cables based on ID awhile ago - all of our equipment now has the ability to switch checking on and off.