blade servers - bl10e

[mark geldart]

help!

does anyone have any experience of using / installing / configuring the BL10E gigabit backplane? We need to VLAN this device and connect it into a Cisco backbone also containing a number of VLANs. This process caused a spanning-tree storm when I did it last time (testing!) which required a complete shutdown of the network!

Essentially in its default state the blade switches keep causing the Cisco switch to trunk traffic across the entire cisco switch.

Any advice / experience would be appreciated!

[Jonas Back_2]

I'm just connecting the BL10e to my network. I haven't tried spanning tree but just a thought - did you disable spanningtree portfast on the ports where you connected the G-CbE interconnect switch?

On the other hand I haven't successfully got VLANs to work on the switch. Can you please tell me how you configured the ports on the Cisco switch and in the C-GbE switch to connect a specific blade to a specific VLAN?

I read the manual and did by the example but couldn't get it to work anyway!

[Christopher Seary]

Did you have any luck with this question? We have a BL10e Enclosure with the C-GbE Interconnect Switch and are experincing the same problems connecting it to a Cisco core switch with multiple VLANs.

[Jeff Allen_5]

If this is still a problem for you (or others) please post a message back saying so and I will see what I can do to help you. I have a lot of experience with this switch configuration.

[Christopher Seary]

Jeff: HP was unable to tell us how to configure the blade switch to carry VLANs from our core Cisco switches. If you have done this I would love to hear how!

[Jeff Allen_5]

Depends on what you mean. If you mean to participate in VTP and dynamically create and prune, the answer is no. VTP is a Cisco-only feature. However, you can easily create the static vlans on the GbE switch and they will participate with the Cisco vlans over a VLAN trunk link.

Here is what you need to know:
Do all of this while disconnected from the LAN.

1) Upgrade to the 2.x fw

2) Create your static VLANs on the GbE. Is this on a p-class or e-class switch? This all depends on what you want to accomplish. If you are splitting each NIC in the blade into its own VLAN, it gets more difficult, but is certainly possible.

3) Go to the VLANs you created and and put the server/switch ports into the correct vlans (make them "egress" in the right vlans). Make sure no server ports are tagged (enless you have a very specific reason to tag them and you would know if you did). This interface is not the best. For example, if you make switch port 1 egress in VLAN 10, and then you untag it, then go into VLAN 11, you will see port 1 with the Tagged option set. It is trying to tell you that this port is not part of this VLAN, but it's confusing. Bottom line is to concentrate only on the VLAN at hand.

4)Now, depending on how you want this done, you may not need this, but hee is how I do it. - I create all the relevant VLANs on BOTH switch A and switch B. I do this even if a VLAN will not have any server ports associated with it on one of the switches.

5) Turn on tagging for the crossover ports in each VLAN you created (ports 21 and 22 on an e-class and 17 & 18 on a p-class).

6) Turn on tagging for all uplink ports (25-26 on an e-class and 19-22 on p-class).

7) If you use PVST+ on your Cisco switches, I would just disable STP on the GbE and let the BPDU frames flow through the GbE and your Cisco switches will still find the loops.

8)ISL trunking os another thing that is Cisco-only. You can't use that here. You need to set your trunk encap to "dot1q" for the ports connecting to the GbE. Cisco doesn't really push ISL that much anymore and this is not a huge deal to use dot1q over ISL.

9)Allow the static vlans across from the Cisco side and you're all set.

Let me know if this doesn't get you what you need.

[Jeff Allen_5]

To clarify - on step 6 above, you need to turn on tagging on all VLANs for the uplink ports, just like you did for the crossover ports.