CX700 Questions

[orven]

We just got new Baby and
Here is what we got.
- C7000 with half height of 16 x 460c
- 4 NICs per BL 460C;2HBA
- 4 Cisco Cat 3020 mdoules x 16 ports each;
- 2 of Cisco MDS 9124e 12-port Fabric Switch modules x 16 ports


Questions:
1.) I need some advice, wondering if there is any good link/ refs that I can use to implement on ESX 3.5.

2.) For the Virtual connect, is it preconfigured and don;t need any further configuration?

[Lmm_1]

Hi,
Here you will find enough ESX documentation

http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/

Regarding the VC Modules, its not configured from factory, you need to configure it.

Just wondering... Do you really have a VC? it wasnt listed on your equipment.

Thanks,

[Neal Bowman]

Orven,
Please confirm your configuration. for your 4 NICs, is that a total of the 2 embedded NICs plus a dual-port NIC, or is this a quad-port mezzanine card in addition to the dual embedded NICs?

Assuming this is a dual-port mezzanine adapter, you will probably have the HBA in mez slot 1 and the NIC in mez slot 2. To make the connections, you will need your Cisco Ethernet switches in interconnect basy 1,2,4, & 5. Put your 9124 switches in bays 3 & 4.

Given this config, you will not need to worry about configuring virtual connect, as VC would be in place of the Cisco modules.

Neal

[orven]

Hi Neal:

For ethernet I have :
(1) Dual Embeded plus (1) dual sitting on Mezzanine Slot 1

For HBA :
(1) of 2 QLogic QMH2462 4Gb FC HBA for HP c-Class BladeSystem on Mezzanice Slot 2

For the Interconnect Modules I have these

For Bay 1, 2,3 and 4 I have the 4 Cisco Cat 3020 mdoules
For Bay 5 and 6 I have the 2 of Cisco MDS 9124e

That is why I cannot find my Virtual connect :); When do I need a Virtual connect??

Can you give me some good advise in terms of config?

Thanks.

[Neal Bowman]

Orven.

Virtual Connect is a different set of interconnect modules, going in in place of the Cisco modules. You would use either the Cisco modules or Virtual Connect modules, but typically not both.

for our installation, we are going with all virtual connect, with the Ethernet modules in bays 1,2,4,5,7 & 8, and fiber in bays 3 & 4. We will be using ESX on our blades, and using the VC modules to pass the VLANs through the uplinks to the individual ESX hosts. We will be connecting into a Cisco Ethernet and SAN environment, but no Cisco modules in our c7000 chassis.

[orven]

So the HP Virtual connect is the counterpart of Ethernet switches of Cisco CAT

All our Infra is purely Cisco including the SAN fabric thus therefore we decided to go to Cisco interconnects.

We will be using ESX as well and we will implement Virtual switch tagging bringing all the VLANS up to the ESX layers.

Why did you choose Virtual Connect?

[Neal Bowman]

we went with VC for a couple of reasons. We purchased the VC Ethernet with the 10G fiber connections, and will be using these to route all network communication through these 10G uplinks, hoping to be able to connect multiple chassis together for VMotion between the different ESX hosts.

The second factor was the cost difference. Our pricing for the Cisco gear was about $3-4000 more than for thesame number of VC modules.

the last part of the equation was the ability to swap servers in case of a hardware failure and not have to worry with changing LUN assignments to the new HBA WWWNs. Virtual Connect lets us assign virtual MAC addresses and virtual WWWN to a server profile. In case of a server failure,, once we get the OS back online, we then reassign the server profile and all LUNs and network settings are back to the original server.

Neal