Virtual connect and port mapping

[Igor Karasik]

Let say we have BL460 in bay 2 in c7000.
NIC1 mapped to port 2 on Virtual connect Bay 1 and NIC2 mapped to port 2 on Virtual connect Bay 2.
Both Virtual connect bays connected to Nortel switches with 8 * 1 Gb connections. In Virtual connect manager we defined Ethernet network "VC-Bay1" (include all 8 connections, LACP used) for Virtual connect in Bay 1 and Ethernet network "VC-Bay2" for Virtual connect in Bay 2.
Now we define profile for BL460 in bay 2 in following matter:
NIC1 -> "VC-Bay1"
NIC2 -> "VC-Bay1"
In that way we connect both NIC to Virtual connect Bay 1.
I assume that in this scenario NIC2 will not connected to network,
but NIC2 is connected and work - probably because internal stacking link between two Virtual connects.
So question is - is it normal situation to connect both NIC (or 4 NIC in BL480) to same Virtual connect bay ?

[JKytsi]

well not the usual way but works too. Normal situation is that bay1 and bay2 goes to same network for example port 1 for both bays (fault tolerance).

[HEM_2]

Igor:

I think you have set up what is called an Active/Active VC configuration. I.E. you have 2 VC Networks that connect to the external infrastructure with the same VLAN or VLANs.

In this situation, we would connect:

NIC1 -> "VC-Bay1"
NIC2 -> "VC-Bay2"

and team the 2 NICs together. This gives full redundancy.

In your situation, yes NIC 2 can communicate out of the VC-Bay1 network because of the VC stacking links.

But you are not providing redundancy. 1) you are not using the Bay 2 uplinks at all and 2) if the Bay 1 VC module fails the server will be down.

hope this helps.

Also, if you are using an Active/Active configuration and doing NIC teaming, take a look at the SmartLink feature of VC.

[Igor Karasik]

Jarkko and HEM - thanks for the answer.

We don't use teaming for several BL460 and BL480 because they run Microsoft Virtual server 2005 and we connect one NIC only to Host and other NIC's (one in BL460 and three in BL480) only to Guests.
We use teaming for all other servers.

>>I think you have set up what is called an Active/Active VC configuration

Yes, you are right. Same VLAN used and all 8 ports of each VC aggregated.
Just until now I thought VC can work only in Active/Passive. Is any document about Active/Active configuration exist ?

>>In your situation, yes NIC 2 can communicate out of the VC-Bay1 network because of the VC stacking links.

I assume that VC stacking link cannot be disabled ?

>>Also, if you are using an Active/Active configuration and doing NIC teaming, take a look at the SmartLink feature of VC.

Thanks, we will set SmartLink to servers with NIC teaming.

HEM, your answers on this forum are extremely useful !!! Many thanks !

[JKytsi]

Here is everything You need to know about VC-enet

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01386629/c01386629.pdf