technology, networking and IP telephony
HP
HP 1/10GB Virtual Connect Interconnect Upgrade to 3.17
5April 7, 2011
by Michael McNamara in HP
With these tough economic times many organizations are trying to make the most out of every dollar and that is especially true in healthcare. In my specific case this means re-utilizing existing equipment to help further the goals of the organization (if only temporarily) rather than burning a whole the size of Texas in the IT capital budget. So over the course of the last few weeks we’ve been preparing to re-light the original HP C7000 Enclosure that launched our foray into the virtual world some 20 months ago. The enclosure has since been shipped to a new data center where it was racked alongside quite a few other HP C7000 enclosures. While we had originally hope to keep all our VM enclosures standardized with HP’s Flex 10 Virtual Connect modules, we’ll be deploying this enclosure with HP’s 1/10GB Virtual Connect modules.
This was the first time I’ve ever run the HP Virtual Connect Support Utility so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were 6 1/10GB Virtual Connect modules in this specific enclosure that needed to be upgraded. If you are utilizing NIC teaming and you have the modules/interconnects cabled in such a way that they are completely redundant then you should be able to upgrade without any downtime. I was able to maintain connectivity (Remote Desktop) to a HP BL460c while the upgrade was running and while the various modules/interconnects rebooted (one at a time). I could see the different NICs on the Microsoft Windows 2003 server go up and come down as the module/interconnect that fed that NIC was rebooted and then recovered. The NIC teaming configuration was the secret sauce that kept the server online and reachable while the utility upgraded the interconnects (one at a time).
You can see from the line of questions that HP put some thought into the upgrade process. The interactive utility will walk you through the upgrade asking you such questions as “Do you want to Specify VC-Enet module activation order?”, “Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-Enet modules?”, etc. In all it took some 35 minutes to upgrade all 6 VC Ethernet modules, the VC SAN modules didn’t require an upgrade.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HP BladeSystem c-Class Virtual Connect Support Utility
Version 1.5.2 (Build 173)
Build Date: Jan 6 2011 11:26:43
Copyright (C) 2007-2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
All Rights Reserved
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please enter action ("help" for list): help
===============================================================================
Action Description
===============================================================================
update Update the module firmware on the target enclosure using the specified Virtual Connect firmware package
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
discover Search a range of IP addresses for Onboard Administrators on the network
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
collect Collect diagnostic information from a target configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
configbackup Download Virtual Connect configuration backup configuration file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
healthcheck Check the configuration status of a target enclosure
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
help Display VCSU command help
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
packageinfo Display information for a given Virtual Connect firmware package file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
report Display current module firmware versions, package firmware versions, and whether a module is updatable
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
resetvcm Reset the Virtual Connect Manager on the remote management configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
supportdump Download Virtual Connect support information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
version Display list of current module firmware versions on target configuration
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please enter action: update
Please enter Onboard Administrator IP Address: 10.1.44.129
Please enter Onboard Administrator Username: Administrator
Please enter Onboard Administrator Password: ********
Please enter firmware package location: c:\vcfwall317.bin
Please enter Bay Number (Optional):
Please enter Configuration backup password (Optional):
Do you want to force an update on modules? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify VC-Enet module activation order? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify VC-FC module activation order? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-Enet modules? (yes/NO):
Do you want to Specify the amount of time(in minutes) to wait between activating or rebooting VC-FC modules? (yes/NO):
Please enter the VCM Domain user credentials.
User Name: Administrator
Password: ********
The following modules will be updated:
==============================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module Current Version New Version
==============================================================================
USE839F82T 1 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F 3.15 3.17
VC-Enet Module 2010-10-09T07:18:16Z 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following modules will NOT be updated:
=====================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module Current Version Status
=====================================================================
USE839F82T 3 HP Virtual 1.41 7.12.4.11 No update needed
Connect 4Gb FC
Module
---------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 4 HP Virtual 1.41 7.12.4.11 No update needed
Connect 4Gb FC
Module
---------------------------------------------------------------------
During the update process, modules being updated will be temporarily
unavailable. In addition, the update process should NOT be interrupted by
removing or resetting modules, or by closing the application. Interrupting
the update or the modules being updated may cause the modules to not be updated
properly.
Please verify the above report before continuing.
Would you like to continue with this update? [YES/NO]: yes
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 0% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 2 of 3 : 50% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 3 of 3 : 0% complete]
Updating firmware [Step 3 of 3 : 50% complete]
The following modules were updated successfully:
=======================================================================
Enclosure Bay Module New Version
=======================================================================
USE839F82T 1 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 2 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 5 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 6 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 7 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USE839F82T 8 HP 1/10Gb-F VC-Enet 3.17 2011-03-16T01:27:44Z
Module
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total execution time: 00:34:13
Press Return/Enter to exit...I’m curious what other people’s experiences have been upgrading their Virtual Connect modules?
Cheers!
HP BL490c G6 Series Servers – Jumbo Frames
0March 9, 2011
by Michael McNamara in HP
While troubleshooting some HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 issues today I came across the following customer advisory that states the on board (LOM) HP NC532i Dual Port 10GbE Multifunction BL-c Adapter that we have in our HP BL490c G6 series servers only supports a maximum frame size of 4088 bytes not the standard ~ 9000 bytes that I had previously thought they were capable of. Worse yet the HP drivers will let you set the MTU to 9014 bytes even though it won’t work.
HP ProLiant Networking Software Version 9.65 incorrectly allows setting a Maximum Frame Size of 9014 bytes (9KB Jumbo Frames); however, the NIC does not support a Maximum Frame Size greater than 4088 bytes.
HP ProLiant Networking Software Version 9.70 (or later) properly limits the Maximum Frame Size setting to 4088 bytes on the affected adapters.
The advisory seems to indicate that this is a hardware issue but I’m curious if anyone else has run into this?
Cheers!
New Data Center – Tidbits
2June 15, 2010
I thought I would follow-up my last post with some additional tidbits and background on the data center build.
Let me start by saying that we haven’t abandoned Nortel/Avaya as a viable network electronics vendor. When we first started this effort back in January 2009 we initially looked at Brocade, Cisco, HP, Juniper and Nortel. After the initial cut we were left with Brocade, Cisco and Nortel/Avaya. When the final decision was made, back in November 2009, there was still a lot of concern about Avaya’s purchase of Nortel’s Enterprise Division so the decision really came down to Brocade or Cisco. Ultimately the decision was made to go with Cisco. As I commented in the previous post we still have well over 33,000 ports on Nortel/Avaya switches and less than 1,000 ports on Cisco switches. We are still purchasing and installing/deploying Nortel/Avaya switches in our hospitals and business offices .
Nexus 5010 Virtual PortChannel bug?
I’ve been known to tell people that we’re a partner with Nortel/Avaya because of the number of bugs that we identify and help to resolve. Well if I thought it was going to be any different with Cisco I can throw that idea right out the window as we have identified a bug in the vPC code for the Nexus 5000 switch. We discovered the issue with a pair of Nexus 5010 switches when one of the switches up and died (hardware failure). While trying to troubleshoot the problem we restarted the remaining Nexus 5010 switch only to find that the remaining Nexus 5010 would no longer adopt the Nexus 2148 switches/FEXes after it was rebooted if the peer Nexus 5010 wasn’t online. If we removed the vpc configuration from the portchannel then the FEX would come online. After speaking with Cisco they have created bug CSCth01969 which is supposedly going to be addressed in the next software release.
HP Virtual Connect Flex-10/NIC issues/ESX 4.0 Update 1 Drivers
We also ran into a number of issues with the HP BL490c blades and HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Interconnect. On a number of blades we had an issue where the ESX installer was unable to locate any network interfaces. The installer would error with something like “The script 32.networking-drivers failed to execute and the installation can not continue.” The solution was to re-apply the NIC firmware after the Virtual Connect profile had been applied to the server. You can find additional detail over at Brian’s blog if interested.
We also ran into another issue when performing our redundancy and high-availability testing. We configured Virtual Connect to use SmartLink, however, when we unplugged the uplinks from the B side interconnect the Virtual Connect Flex-10 interconnect didn’t disable the server side NICs. The solution to this problem was to update the NIC driver that shipped with ESX 4.0 Update 1. You can find the driver here.
Lots of additional stories to come including a comparison of vPC and SMLT.
Cheers!
