HP c3000 blade chassis

[RaglanDan]

We are looking to purchase an HP c3000 blade chassis but have been led to believe that you can only have 4 NICs per blade in this chassis. I beleive it was something to do with the interconnects of which we will have redundant FC and Ethernet. Is this correct? Will we need to look at a c7000 chassis?

[lamw]

I believe it depends on the # of enclosures you have on the chassis, with this document, it should tell you differences:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/enclosures/c-class/c3000/comparison.html

6 with c3000, and 8 with c7000. I've worked with the c7000, and if you use the OA with a hotbackup, that'll take up 2 slots and 4 ethernet modules + 2 FC modules.

I believe the last time I got a presentation from HP about the c3000, they don't necessary have or include the OA interface, you might want to verify, but if you don't need the OA, then yea it would be 4 ethernet modules + 2 FC modules, assuming these are like pass throughs or something, if you use virtual connect, I think you could get more.

You probably just want to give your HP rep a ring or call support to just get it confirmed, I know it can get confusing at times, I know I was for a little bit, especially using pass throughs =/

[dmanconi · Accepted solution]

Hi

If you are using mezzanine cards like you will ahve to, then remember that first mezzanine card connections will all go via the second network module. I am assuming you have two network and two fibre connections, so on your esx install you will need to ensure that nics from the on board and the mezzanine card are split across vmware switches.

I have the same setup for another customer.

Have a look for c01167165.pdf on the HP website at this address (h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01167165/c01167165.pdf) and look at pages 44 and 45 which explains the mappings for half height and full height blades in a C3000 chassis.

Cheers

David

PS Raglan as in Raglan New Zealand?

[RaglanDan]

Hi David - yep Raglan NZ.

Thanks for your response - I had just been sent a link to that same PDF earlier in the day and it's pretty clear that if we need 6 NICs per blade connecting to three different netowrks then we will have to go to the c7000 chassis... Now to find some space in the rack and alert the bean counters...

[RaglanDan]

Apparently the OA slots are a different size so in reality you only have the 4 slots available in the c3000 chassis and in order to have FC and Ethernet you are limited to 4 NICs per blade unless you step up to the c7000...

[dmanconi]

It all comes down to how many blades you are going to use long term. If you are only ever going to use 4 or 6 half height bl460c blades over a few years (for example) then a c7000 will be a waste. Full height blades would be better suited in the C7000 though.

Do you really need six nics? Can you get away with VLAN tagging for some of it? That way you can cut down the number of nics and still use the C3000. And keep the bean counters happy.

Cheers