bl460c g8 quad port NIC?

[dunfraggin]

HI All,

I was wondering if anyone knew if the new bl460c g8 blades could still take a quad port Ethernet mezzanine card (such as the nc325m) or not?  We have not yet deployed flex connect in our infrastructure and so currently I would need to add some additional nics to a new blade using our existing pass-thru modules in the c7000 enclosure.

If it's not possible then I guess I'm stuck with going for g7 blades instead but I'd certainly prefer to buy a g8 blade if I could.

Thanks in advance!

D

[Sudhakar Subramaniam]

Hi,

Quad port mezzanine card is suppiorted.

Please check the quick specs for the same.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/14208_div/14208_div.HTML

Regards

Sudhakar

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[dunfraggin]

Thanks Sudhakar.

I've looked through the quickspecs at it does state that it supports quad port mezzanine cards but does not specifically state that it supports quad port ethernet mezzanine cards (in slot 2).  I only ask as I have had a supplier say to me that they are not supported and I wanted to be sure that was the case or not.

The section of the quickspecs which staes about quad port mezzanine cards says this:

Expansion Slots

Two (2) I/O expansion mezzanine slots:

• x16 PCIe 3.0 Type A (supports Type A mezzanine cards) (expansion slot 1).
  NOTE: This expansion slot supports dual-port mezzanine cards: one port is routed to interconnect module bay 3 and the other to bay 4.
• x16 PCIe 3.0 Type B (supports Type A and Type B mezzanine cards (expansion slot 2).
  NOTE: This expansion slot supports dual-port and quad-port mezzanine cards. For dual-port cards, one port is routed to interconnect module bay 5 and the other to bay 6. For quad-port cards, one port is routed to interconnect module bay 5, one to bay 6, one to bay 7, and one to bay 8.
  NOTE: A second processor must be installed (in processor slot 2) to have access to the second expansion slot (expansion slot 2).

Mezzanine card options include:

• Dual-port 10Gb FlexFabric and10Gb Flex-10 for additional network ports.
• Dual-port 8Gb Fibre Channel HBA for SAN connectivity.
• QDR and FDR InfiniBand for low latency and high bandwidth server interconnectivity.

The 'mezzanine card options include:' section does not state ethernet cards.  Do you know if these are still supported in this blade.  In particular if the nc325m or nc364m cards are supported as those are the ones we have used in previous generations of hte bl460c blades.

Many thanks.

[dunfraggin]

Just had it confirmed by HP that the g8 blades no longer support any of the dual or quad port ethernet mezzanine cards.  It's only flex-10, flexfabric or infiniband cards for the additional networking interconnects.

[chuckk281]

The BL460c Gen8 will support quad port mezzanine cards. They are just not out yet.

And you are correct, the Gen8 blades require the new form factor FlexibleNetwork adapters. The previous generation adapters do not fit.

[DanRobinson]

To elaborate here, the Gen8 blades have 2 changes in the realm of network cards

1) There is now a FlexLOM slot that allows a customer to pick whatever "Onboard" NIC they want, which aligns with Bays 1 and 2 on the rear.  Currently the only FlexLOM Cards out are the Flex-10 and FlexFabric type.

2) The Mezzanine cards changed form factor between G7 and Gen8 so the G7 and earlier mezz cards will not physically fit.  While we do not have Quad port NICs in Gen8 Mezz form factor out today, as mentioned they are in fact on the roadmap and should be out fairly soon.

3) Just as a point of reference, the Drive carrier also changed between G7 and Gen8 so Hot Swap drives are also not portable between the 2 families.