Proliant DL380P FlexibleLOM 554FLR-SFP+ Wiring / Cabling to Standard Ethernet / RJ45 - How to ?

[AJKTEK]

Hello,

I realize this is a very basic question, but doing some searching about HP FlexibleLOM NICs on google I could not find any clear easy answers to this question.

What are the options for wiring a FlexibleLOM 554FLR-SFP+ to a standard Ethernet RJ45 Switch?   Clearly I am unfamiliar with the SFP connectors, and many of the HP documents / QuickSpecs make it seem like it is compatable with standard RJ45 wiring, which I highly doubt based on the connector design not appearing compatable with a RJ45 connector.

So anyway, I just wanted to ask this basic question and ask what adapter/connector/cable is needed to connect the SFP LOM connector to a RJ45 Ethernet switch?   Also if anyone could refrence a document with a list of supported connection methods with required parts it would be  a great bonus.

Thanks so much!

[HPSDMike]

Hello,

This is a 10GB SFP+ based NIC with hardware based iSCSI and FCoE abilities. It can act as a plain old 10GB NIC. You cannot terminate this card with a standard RJ45 (1GB or 10GB); it's just not a supported option. So, your only option is to connect this card to your switch by way of a SFP+ DAC cable or Fibre Transceiver/Fiber cable (assuming your switch has at least one SFP+ port) or swapping out this card with one that supports RJ45. The quickspecs for this card lay our the DAC cable, or fibre transceiver, options. 

[AJKTEK]

Thank

---

@HPSDMike wrote:

Hello,

This is a 10GB SFP+ based NIC with hardware based iSCSI and FCoE abilities. It can act as a plain old 10GB NIC. You cannot terminate this card with a standard RJ45 (1GB or 10GB); it's just not a supported option. So, your only option is to connect this card to your switch by way of a SFP+ DAC cable or Fibre Transceiver/Fiber cable (assuming your switch has at least one SFP+ port) or swapping out this card with one that supports RJ45. The quickspecs for this card lay our the DAC cable, or fibre transceiver, options. 

---

Thank you for your reply and information.  It is useful and I appreciate it.

So just to be clear if I were connecting over a short distance from the server with  the 10gb SFP+ NIC to a Cisco Switch with 2x MINI-GBIC (SFC) ports I would need both a LC to LC Duplex Multimode Patch cable and 2x 10gb  SFP+ Optical Transceiver per port?   Could this same cable/trancievers work to a 10gb -> 1gb SFP or is that controlled by the tranciever?

[HPSDMike]

Are you ultimately trying to connect this card at 1GB on the switch side? Does your switch support 10GB SFP+? If all you want is 1GB then why not just use the 1GB RJ45 ports that are likely already be on the server or switch the FlexLOM card? I'm just trying to understand the effort of connecting this card at 1GB. 

If you are connecting a 10GB SFP+ transceiver on one side, to a SFP transceiver on the other (with an opitcal cable) I'm not sure if it will  work or not. I don't know if the card will reliably negotiate down to 1GB. 

If you've got a bunch of extra SFP's and/or SFP+ transceivers sitting around then I suppose you could try to see if you can get it to work. They also make SFP+ to RJ45 transceivers but I do not believe it is a supported option in this card (and the size would probably block the other port). 

So, if you have parts around, give it a whirl and see what you can make work. If you don't then I'd encourage you to use the onboard 1GB NICs, change your switch to something that can support SFP+, or replace the FlexLOM with a 1GB card.

[AJKTEK]

---

@HPSDMike wrote:

Are you ultimately trying to connect this card at 1GB on the switch side? Does your switch support 10GB SFP+? If all you want is 1GB then why not just use the 1GB RJ45 ports that are likely already be on the server or switch the FlexLOM card? I'm just trying to understand the effort of connecting this card at 1GB. 

Currently yes I am trying to connect to a 1gb SFP switch port as a short term solution and experiment.   This is a partial educational use network lab.    Server currently does not have any RJ45 NIC ports oddly as it sounds other then for ILO.   I could easily add a stardard NIC, which I even have on hand, but if the 10gb SFP+ to 1gb SFP switch port should work it is preferred as it is also part of the learning experiance in the setup with the Fiber.

Thanks for the recommendations.   It sounds like the 10gb - 1gb SFP+ to SFP are not backwards compatable and if they are not going to work I appreciate you saving me the time trying and I will just ether get a upgraded switch for the setup or add a standard NIC to the server if I have to for cost considerations in this educational setup.

[Cali]

I use this Adapter:

HP 1GB  SFP RJ-45  Module

P/N: 453156-001