IBM Blade with ESX 3.5U2 and Windows 2008 Guest

[VolksDude]

Hi Guys,

I have been trying to setup a ESX Server V3.5.0 Update 2 with a Windows 2008 Standard Guest VM. All this on a IBM BladeCenter with a HS21XM Blade. The VM works great when I am using the console, but as soon as I try to connect using RDP, the VM stops responding and I lose the connection to the ESX server for 10 minutes. After that timeout, the ESX server starts responding again and the Win2008 VM is still there, didn't lose any data. The ESX Server uptime is not 0. It looks like the networking of the ESX server decides to let go. I updated the Win2008 VM with all the latest update from Microsoft and it still dies. I then decided to try the same setup with a Windows 2003 VM and it never dies...works really solid.

The HS21XM uses the NetXen NIC Card which is detected perfectly by the ESX server.

Am I the only one with this problem?

Thanks

-Gerry

[Erik_Bussink]

How is the Nortel 10GbE network configured in the IBM BladeCenter ? Can you monitor the network switches for the link status ? Is this a new BladeCenter/10GbE config or have you had other system running for some time ?

[VolksDude]

The Nortel switch is configured with Pass-Thru. No special config done. When I look for the link status, it still looks like it's up.

It is a brand new BladeCenter/10GbE config. I have 7 blades using ESX server and they all do the same thing with a Win2008 VM.

Thanks!

-Gerry

[VolksDude]

Well, just an update. I just tried again but this time, with RedHat Linux and the ThinStuff LX Server. It started doing the same thing. So It must be the Nortel switch acting up.

[Erik_Bussink]

Can you give us a layout of how you're ESX server vSwitches are configured ? The commands esxcfg-vswitch -l and esxcfg-nics -l should give you the info.

I'm curious to see if you're Service Console for the ESX server uses the Gigabit network interfaces on you're HS21XM or if you're Service Console is also going out over the NetXen 10GbEs...

Regards,

Erik

[VolksDude]

Right now, only vSwitch0 is configured with the default VM Network and Service Console. Going thru vmnic0 which is the NetXen NetXen IMEZ

[VolksDude]

Sorry....Double-Post

[Erik_Bussink]

Is there anyway you can separate the Service Console traffic and the VMotion traffic over a secondary vSwitch (with CIGESM switches in I/O module 1&2) at least for now ? or do you only have the two Nortel passthru modules in the back of you're BladeCenter H ?

Which build version of ESX 3.5.0 are you using ? As per IBM I/O options for VI 3.5 "The NetXen cards only had experimental support with VMware in 3.5. TSO, Jumbo Frames, and VLAN tagging are not be supported in ESX Server 3.5."

[VolksDude]

Finally found the problem. It was the NIC Card firmware that wasn't up to date.

Thanks for helping out!!