Stacking two Enclosures

[Ogaily]

Greetings,
I have two Blade enclosures (7000c) and each one has two VC-Eth modules, my question is that can i stack both enclosures using the 10-GbE CX4 Cables ?
Thank you
Regards,
Zaid

[Igor Karasik]

You can do it if your modules are HP 1/10Gb-F Virtual Connect
You cannot do stacking if you have HP 1/10Gb Virtual Connect
See this document for more information:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=3794423&prodTypeId=3709945&objectID=c01724621

[JKytsi]

You can stack the "normal" modules too. Use CX-4 or 1Gb links. It works.

[JKytsi]

Just remember that that feature is supported only on later firmware revisions. So VC must be updated first.

[Adrian Clint]

Just to confirm...
Stacking is there to...
1. Use a limited number of uplinks
2. Let network traffic commnicate within the enclosures. This does not work if you have PRIVATE enabled on the Vnets

This is not the same as a Multi-enclosure domain - which allows you to move profiles between enclosures.

[Igor Karasik]

Adrian, Jarkko - thanks for right comments.
I just didn't thought that somebody can do stack between enclosures and not use one VC domain

[Adrian Clint]

Multi enclosure domains need Flex-10 or 1/10Fibre versions in bays 1 & 2 as the 1/10 copper VC modules dont have enough memory to cope with the configuration of more than one enclosure.

I think stacking them requires that you have the same Vnet & SUS configs - you just cant move profiles between enclosures.

The memory issue of the original VC modules is I believe the reason why 2.30 firmware comes in different versions for different SAN virtual connect modules. It cant fit all the possible combinations in the restricted memory.

[Ogaily]

Greetings my friends,
I want to thank you all for your help.

What is the supported firmware revision for enabling the stacking?

The reason why I need the stacking so I donâ t have to use external switches to communicate between the servers on the different enclosure. Iâ m thinking of clustering the servers between the two enclosures.
I have created the attached diagrams for the VC-Eth configurations and port mapping and I need your feedback on it.

Thank you.

[JKytsi]

Version 2.30 (latest) enables this ...

Support the ability to connect two VC domains together (SE or ME) by directly connecting their uplinks (no switch in between) to form a private network.

[The Brit]

Good Morning Zaid,
Since I am not a windows or linux type, I cant comment on your clustering plans, (although I'm sure if there is something amiss, someone will comment). I would however offer the following comments,

1. Looking at your attachment, it looks like only APP/WEB1 and APPWEB2 require access to the external network, however you are only showing access via VCEnet Module 1 in each enclosure. So, a failure of either of the modules in Bay 1 would force a failover between APP/WEB1 <--> APP/WEB2 (assuming they are clustered)

2. It also looks like the APP/WEB1 and APP/WEB2 servers each have a "free" nic (NIC4), so why not run an additional uplink from the ENet modules in IC Bay 2 on each enclosure, to the network switch, and team NICs 3 and 4 on the servers. (Note: I believe that NIC4 is hard wired to IC BAY 2 anyway)

With this done, a failure of the ENet Modules in either of the IC Bay 1's would not cause a system/app failover, just a NIC failover.

With the current configuration (as shown), a failure of either of the Bay 1 ENet modules will result in the APP/WEB server in that enclosure being cut off from the network. And, even though the VC Manager will fail over to Module 2, there is no uplink from Module 2.

Hope this is useful.

Dave.