Upgrading FC PassThru to Virtual Connect Fibre Channel modules

[chuckk281]

Russell had a customer upgrade question:

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A customer is considering upgrading from Fibre Channel Passthru modules to VC Fibre Channel.  In order to shorten the enclosure downtime a little bit, he would like to put the new FC modules in spare slots and upgrade the firmware and integrate them into the VC domain.  After the configuration is set, he would then shut everything down, remove the passthru modules and move the FC modules into the slots where the passthrus were.

I’m thinking that this is not possible, as the domain would expect to see the FC modules in the slots where they were and the configuration would not be maintained.  True?

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Reply from Mark:

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The only thing you would gain by putting the modules in another spare slot temporarily is updating the firmware.

You cannot create Fabrics and Associate profiles to these while they are in the spare slot and expect to move the module and have that follow the modules.

By putting them in a spare slot and updating the Firmware, the modules will be integrated/imported into the domain automatically.

As long as you don’t create any Fabrics, then you can remove them from the spare Bays and install them in the current position of the Pass-Through modules. The VC-FC will be automatically removed from the Domain (spare Interconnect Bays) and integrated/imported into the Domain in the new Interconnect Bays. Once they are in correct bays, then and only then should you create Fabrics and modify profiles.

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Comments or questions?