Can VC FlexFabric and VC 1/10Ethernet modules reside in the same VC Domain?

[chuckk281]

Mike had a VC module upgrade question:

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My customer is going to swap the 1/10 Ethernet modules in bays 1 and 2 with Flex Fabric VC modules.  Can FlexFabric and 1/10 Ethernet modules be in the same VC Domain (used firmware 3.60)?

Will the LOMs on the G1 servers still communicate with the FlexFabric modules in bays 1 and 2 as a 1.0 Gbit NIC?  Some of their G1 servers will be upgraded to GEN8 blades, but not all of them.

We know that the VVC Domain will need to be rebuilt once we replace the 1/10 Ethernet modules in bays 1 and 2.

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Carl replied:

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This is a trick question – since the FlexFabric modules will be in bays 1-2, and have to be replaced simultaneously.

The migration process is a total outage and requires recreation of the domain. If the new modules are at a FW higher than 3.6 they would have to be downgraded to support this prior to adding other 1/10 modules into the domain configuration. In short it is a very difficult migration to address.

It would be better to buy an extra enclosure and migrate the customer environment one enclosure at a time… especially if there are more 1/10 modules in other bays or the enclosures are stacked. And then there are other issues specially if you want to preserve addresses and profiles.

If you are just doing a 1-1 replacement of flexfabric from 1/10, it is possible to save everything, but it still requires a total outage and substantial prep work.

There is a migration doc for the VC Flex-0/10D in the works, and a lot of the migration work will be very similar.

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Comments?

[chuckk281]

Back from Mike:

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Correction:  My customer is migrating from 1/10 Ethernet in slots 1 and 2 to the new Flex Fabric modules.  The will be running both Ethernet traffic and FC traffic from the new GEN8 blades.  They hope to continue to use the FC VC modules in slots 3 and 4, the 1/10 Ethernet VC modules in slots 5 – 8 for their G1 blades during the migration.  They plan on using the G1 blades with the GEN8 blades in the same enclosure until they get funding to replace the remaining G1 servers.  Of the 10 G1 blades in their ESX cluster, 6 will be replaced with GEN8 blades.

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Input from Dan:

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Don’t forget you will need to stack the FlexFabric and the 1/10 modules.

With FC and Stacking and Ethernet you will run out of ports very quickly.

Check with the customer on 1/10 vs 1/10-F as well.

1/10-F will be easier to stack because we make a SFP+ to XFP Twinax cable.

HP X244 10G XFP to SFP+ 1m Direct Attach Copper Cable	J9300A
HP 10G X244 XFP to SFP+ 3m Direct Attach Copper Cable	J9301A
HP 10G X244 XFP to SFP+ 5m Direct Attach Copper Cable	J9302A

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And from Carl:

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That said, there is no way to migrate without an outage. replacing the 1/10 in bays 1-2 needs to be done in one action, and therefore the domain will need to be recreated.

In short the best bet is to get the current modules up to v3.51 (yes, this is specifically recommended) and then gather the configuration via the SHOW commands.

VCSU 1.7.1 is available here:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3794423&prodNameId=3794431&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=13&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-73095810f7af4c70be44dec475&mode=3

VC 3.51 is available here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3201263&prodNameId=3201264&swEnvOID=2065&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-9e9b60b50d794c3f8a0298c5fb

There will be a lot of script editing to preserve the configuration – especially if MAC and WWN need to be preserved. The document in process is not going to go into detail on more than a single module pair in terms of migration.

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