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newbie question about nics & vmware

 
Alberto de_la_Torre
Occasional Contributor

newbie question about nics & vmware

We recently got a c3000 and 3 bl460c blades. We are running vsphere. There are only 2 nics per blade. What is common practice to get more nics on these blades?

Thanks.
5 REPLIES 5
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: newbie question about nics & vmware

You need to add NICs via the Mezzanine bays.

There are two Mezz slots in a bl460c. Mezz1 can take a two port card and maps those two ports to interconnect bay 2. Mezz2 can take a 4 port card and maps those 4 ports to IC bays 3 and 4.

If you are using FC SAN storage, I suggest that you put FC card on Mezz1 and 4-port Ethernet on Mezz 2. If not, you can use Mezz 1 for ethernet also.

Remember however, if there is Ethernet on Mezz1 then IC Bay 2 must be an Ethernet module of some type. If you have FC HBA on Mezz 1, then Bay 2 must be FC module/switch.

If you have 4 port ethernet on Mezz2, then you must have ethernet modules in BOTH IC Bay 3 and IC Bay 4 (in order to use all 4 NICs)

HTH

Dave.
Alberto de_la_Torre
Occasional Contributor

Re: newbie question about nics & vmware

I believe we have the raid controller in slot 1 so the blades can connect to the msa2324sa.

What is the part # for the 4-port mezzanine card?
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: newbie question about nics & vmware

dchmax
Frequent Advisor

Re: newbie question about nics & vmware

What generation BL460? G6+ has Flex 10 and if you have a Flex 10 interconnect in bay 1 that will get you more nics, not redundancy. Like the Brit recommended, install a NC364m Quad Port 1GbE BL-c Adapter
in Mez 2, to use all 4 ports you will need a 1/10 virtual connect or pass throughs in Interconnect 3 and 4. Please confirm all of this with your HP and/or reseller rep.

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13127_na/13127_na.HTML#Overview

About half way down you can find the port mapping. This is from the Flex10 interconnect page.
dchmax
Frequent Advisor

Re: newbie question about nics & vmware

Also make sure these cards and equipment are on the hardware compatability list for your version of ESX.