BL465c Embedded pNICs - Minimalist Approach

[sgunelius]

I understand that when considering the number of network connections required for a host a best practice approach would be to dedicate one connection for COS, one for vMotion and one for the vSwitch, but I find that I may have to take the minimalist approach using only the two embedded pNICs with the BL465c servers that are being purchased for our new infrastructure. We're using the VirtualConnect for Ethernet (VCE) modules in our c7000 blade chassis, but if we add a mezzanine card to provide additional network connections, it becomes necessary to add more VCE modules and they can be expensive.

So, while this won't be an optimal configuration, I've heard that I can operate with only the embedded pNICs configured in the same vSwitch, but that I'll have to configure VLANs to separate the traffic associated with COS, VMs and vMotion. Does this sound correct and are there any gotchas I should be aware of during/after configuration? If I do find my network performance suffering, I may get authorization and budget to acquire additional mezz cards/VCE modules at a later date. Thank you in advance for your response.

[Troy_Clavell]

I used to work for a company, because of budget issues we used only the two onboard NICs for everything. We had the service console, virtual machine network and Vmotion all coming out of the two onboard NICs.

[azn2kew]

We still have 4 blade servers that only have 2 pNICs and things runs fine. 1 vNIC uses both SC/VMotion and 1 vNIC for VM networks. You can have different combination if you want redundancy but would be at least 4NICs if possible. I've attached Dell blade settings for different scenarios check for details.

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[sgunelius]

Stefan,

Thank you very much for the document. I especially like the matrix that described the configuration options. This should be very helpful.

Regards,

Scott

[azn2kew]

Anytime! I like the document as well, has good matrix to follow very standardize especially for your blade environment. Good luck.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[tfskelly]

Hello,

We have a similar setup with the c7000 and the BL465c. Each BL465c has 8 pNICs. We did not purchase the VCE modules, and instead opted for eight GbE2c switches. We had a lot of issues configuring the GbE2c switches in our Cisco environment and considered replacing two of the GbE2c switches with Cisco or VCE.

My point is that, afaik, you do NOT need to add two VCE switches for each mezzanine card. You can purchase the GbE2c instead. They are MUCH less expensive and, while they can be a bit of a pain to setup, they do work. I would recommend using the GbE2c for VMotion and Console traffic and using the VCE for your VMNetwork traffic.

If you have a Cisco environment I highly recommend this document for getting the GbE2c to work correctly:

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA1-0779ENW.pdf

Hope this helps!

Kelly

[sgunelius]

Kelly,

Thanks for the suggestion. We had considered other Ethernet switch modules, but we weren't sure how well the other switch modules would play with our Alcatel environment. I'm hopeful that our performance won't suffer greatly from a scarcity of network ports; I guess I'll find out the first time I attempt a vMotion. If I find I need another mezz card, I'll ask management to bite the bullet for this and the additional VCE modules, but I'll leave open the option to use the GbE2c instead. Thank you again for your timely response.

Cheers,

Scott

[jraper]

Hi Kelly,

I realize that this thread is approaching four years old....BUT....I have a c7000 chassis with two Gb2Ec switches, and the URL in your post for how to configure them in a Cisco network is now broken. I've searched high and low and not found it. I did find one HP white paper entitled, "ProLiant BL p-Class GbE2 Interconnect Switch Compatibility with Cisco-based Networks" here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00111930/c00111930.pdf

However, it specifically states that it is for p-Class enclosures, not c-Class enclosures....I'm not certain of the differences and if this information is cross-compatible.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Regards,

Jonathan