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Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

 
VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Hello everyone!
I have inherited a BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure with 3 x ProLiant BL460c G1 blades and 2 x GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch. We are currently migrating from an EMC Clariion CX3 to an EMC Celerra NX4. On the Both Ethernet Blade switches ports 23 & 24 were dual corded to the EMC ClalriionтАЩs two Storage process for Redundancy. Within the 2 switches both sets of ports are on separate VLAN dedicated to iSCSI. As i was migrating over to the NX4 I realized that the Ethernet blade in the 2nd interconnect bay was not showing up on our iSCSI network and was possibly never configured for the iSCSI network. I looked over web interface of both the chassis and the two Ethernet blades and saw no difference between them that might cause this. The only thing that was different was in Port Mapping under the ChassisтАЩ onboard Administrator: The Ethernet Blade switch that is accessible on the iSCSI network shows two Device ID's per interconnect Bay Port while the one that isnтАЩt only shows 1 device per port. I assume there must be a way to set this up but I canтАЩt find out where. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!
13 REPLIES 13
Sivaramakrishna_1
Honored Contributor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Hi,

I suppose you are not using any additional Mezz card on Mezz1 Slot. As you are using C3000 Enclosure, both Onboard NIC ports are mapped to only interconnect Bay1 only.

So for serer 1, i think Both iSCSI ports will be mapped to port 1 and 4, 2 and 5 for SErver 2 and so on..

If u have any additional Mezz card with iSCSI support installed on MEzz1 Card then only those will be mapped to Interconnect Bay 2.

It is different from C7000 Enclosure, in that case 2 onboard ports mapped to both Interconnect bays 1 and 2.
VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Sivaramakrishna, thanks for the reply! So I think the part I'm having trouble understanding the function of the Mezzanine slots. I took over for the Admin who installed this enclosure and I've been learning about it as I go along. From what I can tell we do have a Mezz1 Card but I don't see any details about it within the Onboard Administrator (see attached).
If i'm following you correctly the C3000 enclosure can't share a network connection between interconnect bay 1 and 2? If that is the case what purpose would I use the 2nd interconnect bay for? I was hoping to use the two Ethernet Blade Switch together so if one fails the other one will still be able to carry the iSCSI traffic.
VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

I also attached a screen capture from the onboard administrator for my c3000
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

In your OA,

Select one of the blades (under Device Bays) which has a Mezzanine Card installed, and you should see a tab labeled "Information".
Select that tab and scroll down. You should then see the information identifying the Mezz card, Slot and Type.

Dave.
VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Ahh, Thanks Dave!

So in Mezzanine Slot 1 I have the following device for each of my 3 blades: NC373m Dual Port Multifunction 1Gb NIC for c-Class BladeSystem.

So from this i take it that there is 2 Mezzanine slots per device bay? Originally I thought it was 2 Mezzanine slots per Chassis...Excuse my ignorance on this. I wasn't around for initial spec and build, and documentation is sparse on the setup. So i'm stumbling through our SAN migration.

So what does this mean for me trying to use both interconnect bays to host iSCSI traffic? For example I would like like to use both ports 23 and 24 on both of my Ethernet blades for the two storage processors in my EMC NX4. Can I do that or am I stuck using just one for iSCSI traffic?

The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

So Mezz1 contains an Ethernet card. The ports on Mezz1 card will map to Interconnect Bay #2 (Rear View, top right slot). These mappings are "hard" and there is nothing you can do about them.

There should also be copper cables from the IC modules (1 & 2) to the external network switch(es), or to your storage sub-system, if appropriate.

I have never worked with iSCSI storage, or EMC hardware, so this is probably the end of my input to this thread.

Good Luck

Dave.

VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Dave, all of what you said is true in my setup. I guess what i'm getting hung up on is what is the purpose of the mezzanine cards and the other interconnect bays? From what I can tell the mezzanine cards connect to the 2nd interconnect bay which is physically separated from the on board nics and the 1st interconnect bay. I was hoping that the interconnect bays would be able to function as stacked switches but it looks like this isn't the case? I've also upload a screen cap of my two interconnect bays just in case.
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Basically, half-height blades have 2 onboard NICs (LOMs), and full-height blades have 4 onboard nics.

In a c3000 enclosure, all onboard NICs map to IC Bay 1 (which is a single point of failure).

In order to set up network redundancy, it is necessary to add additional NICs in the form of a Mezz Card. As noted earlier, Mezz1 maps to IC Bay 2, so a NIC team can be set up between 1 LOM port (IC Module 1) and 1 Mezz port (IC Module 2) to provide redundancy

In a c7000 enclosure (at least in VC config), IC Bay 1 can talk to IC Bay 2 across the backplane. I dont know if that is true in c3000.

Check out the c3000 port mapping diagram (google it) to figure out your options.

For the Mezz ports, whatever you instal on Mezz1 or Mezz2 must be acceptable to all server blades in the enclosure. The type and position of the Mezz card absolutely determines the type of IC module that must be installed in the bay you are mapping to.

In your case you are OK. Ethernet Mezz card mapping to Ethernet Switch.

HTH

Dave.
VoxMedica
Occasional Advisor

Re: c3000 Enclosure's 2nd Interconnect bay blade switch not showing up on iSCSI network

Sorry to keep asking more questions Dave. But do you know how to remap ports on the switch? I'm guessing that the reason I can't access the iSCSI network is that the two iSCSI HBA/Ports/whatevers are only mapped to the 1st interconnect bay (see attached). Is there anyway to move one of them to the second interconnect bay?