Questions on VC Smartlinks

[Bob Porambo]

I am new to HP VC and have questions regarding Smartlinks.

We have a two enclosure confiuration interconnected by Stacking Links. Each enclosure has two Flex-10 Ethernet modules , Bay 1 and Bay 2. Configuration has one Shared Uplink Set and the domain operates in "mapping" mode. VC firmware 3.15. Linux and Windows blades

enc0:1:X1 Active
enc0:1:X2 Active

enc1:2:X1 Standby
enc1:2:X2 Standby


1) If the Active uplinks go down , the VC Module in enc0:1 should "down" all the ports going to the blade servers. Correct?

2) The uplinks on VC module enc1:X1/X2 will be come active. Will the servers in enc1 be impacted? In other words, will the VC
modules in enc1 change their downlink ports in any way?

3) Eventually the uplinks on enc0:1:X1/X2 will come back on line. I assume the "Active" uplinks will remain on enc1:2:X1/X2. Correct?
Will the VC module in enc0:1 bring the downlinks back on line? If so, will the servers in enc0: switch back their connections to the VC module
in enc0:1 ?

4) Somewhere I had take a note that enabling Smartlink on Vlans while in "mapping mode" would NOT cause the VC module to "down" ports upon uplink
failures. This would seem to go against everything in theory from the above steps. Did I just make a mistake taking notes or is there some correlation between
Smartlinks and the vlan mode used (mapping vs. tunneling)?

Thanks,
Bob

[HEM_2 · Accepted solution]

Bob,

Smartlink is usually only helpful when you employ an Active/Active Uplink configuration.

The configuration you have described above is a single Shared Uplink Set, i.e. Active\ Standby Uplink Configuration.

The strict definition of Smartlink is that when all available uplinks for a given network or Shared Uplink Set (SUS) are down, the downlink ports associated with that network or SUS will be dynamically disabled.

Because you only have 1 SUS above, you would have to lose all 4 uplinks in order for all downlinks to get shut down - not entirely useful.

A better use of Smartlink would be to use an Active/Active uplink config, i.e. define A-side and B-side Shared Uplink Sets.

SUS-A would contain:
enc0:1:X1 Active
enc0:1:X2 Active

SUS-B would contain:
enc1:2:X1 Active
enc1:2:X2 Active

to answer your questions above:

1)no, because of smartlink definition above

2)yes enc1:x1/X2 will become active. No servers will be impaired if the stacking links betwen modules are connected correctly.

3)yes, enc1:X1/X2 will remain active when enc0 links come back. Once again no impact to downlinks in this config scenario.

4) Smartlink will work for both map mode and tunnel mode

Hope this helps...

[Bob Porambo]

In your example of an active/active configuration, you define two SUS: SUS:A and SUS:B . These SUS's would define two seperate sets of vlans, correct? If so, how does that help? Can you expand on this example just a bit so I can grasp the concept?

Thanks

[HEM_2]

Bob,

Look at Scenario 3:2 from this doc:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01990371/c01990371.pdf

SUS-A and SUS-b will have the same VLANs contained in them.

SUS-A will have
vlan101a
vlan102a
vlan103a

SUS-B will have
vlan101b
vlan102b
vlan103b

On all server profiles in both enclosures LOM1 connections will have a-side networks. LOM2 connections will have b-side networks.

[Bob Porambo]

Thanks. That clears up a lot.