HP nPartitions (nPars) manual Ethernet network connections

Profile entry	Assigned SAN	VCM assigned WWN	Mapping to BL870c i4 ports
8	unassigned	50:06:0B:00:00:C3:26:1E	Auxiliary MEZZ1:2-b
9	SAN-5	50:06:0B:00:00:C3:26:20	Monarch LOM:3-b

The Monarch blade LOM3 now has the correct SAN assignment so the HW path from the original server has been restored, but the WWN is changed so a change to the SAN infrastructure may be necessary so that the required storage devices associate with the new WWN. Also note that this enables FCoE on port 'b' of the Auxiliary blade LOM and MEZZ FlexFabric devices leaving only three ports on each device available for Ethernet connections. LOM3 and LOM4 belong to the same physical LOM device on the blade so because both 'b' ports on a LOM device must be configured with the same protocol, the Monarch LOM:4-b will be enabled as an FCoE port and not available as an Ethernet port since LOM:3-b has an FCoE entry mapped to it. The Auxiliary blade LOM3 and LOM4 'b' ports, however, remain available as Ethernet ports because neither of those ports have an FCoE connection entry mapped to them.

Ethernet network connections

The Ethernet connection entries in a profile are handled differently from SAN entries in order to balance the use of Flex-10 ports (even if no Flex-10 ports are used, the same balanced approach is used). Virtual Connect manager distributes the Ethernet connection entries across all of the blades in a server, and on each blade it distributes connection entries across all of the Ethernet physical ports. This is done so that as few Flex-10 sub-ports are used as needed, which results in maximum band-width available to each Flex-10 sub-port. This distribution of Ethernet connection entries across all Ethernet ports is done for single-blade servers, too. The net result is that the mapping of Ethernet connection entries in a profile assigned to a server will likely change when that server is upgraded. Consider the following examples.

•• If the upgrade is from a BL860c i4 to a BL870c i4 then every other Ethernet connection entry starting with the first entry (for example, the first, third, fifth, etc. entries) will be mapped to ports on the Monarch blade, and every other entry starting with the second entry (for example, the second, fourth, sixth, etc. entries) will be mapped to ports on the Auxiliary blade.

•If the upgrade is from a BL860c i4 to a BL890c i4, then every fourth Ethernet connection entry starting with the first entry (for example, the first, fifth, ninth, etc. entries) will be mapped to ports on the Monarch blade; every fourth entry starting with the second entry (for example, the second, sixth, tenth, etc. entries) will be mapped to the first Auxiliary blade; every fourth entry starting with the third entry (for example, the third, seventh, eleventh, etc. entries) will be mapped to the second Auxiliary blade; and finally every fourth entry starting with the fourth entry will be mapped to ports on the 3rd Auxiliary blade.

As an example, consider a profile with 8 Ethernet connection entries where each entry defines a connection to a different network (this makes it easy to see what happens when an upgrade is done). Assume that the profile is assigned to a BL860c i4 that is upgraded to a BL870c i4. Assume that VC Flex-10 Interconnect modules exist in bays 1 and 2, thus the FlexFabric LOM ports on the blades are utilized as Flex-10 ports. The following table shows how these entries are mapped to ports on the original server and to the blades in the upgraded server. The examples here assume that the LOM FlexFabric devices are not in FCoE mode. That is, there are no FCoE connection entries in the VCM server profile.

		VCM assigned MAC	Mapping to BL860c i4	Mapping to BL870c i4
Profile entry	Assigned network	address	ports	ports
1	LAN-1	00-17-A4-77-90-10	Monarch LOM1–a	Monarch LOM1–a
2	LAN-2	00-17-A4-77-90-12	Monarch LOM2–a	Auxiliary LOM1–a
3	LAN-3	00-17-A4-77-90-14	Monarch LOM3–a	Monarch LOM2–a

74 Optional components