For more information, see "MAC address settings (on page 178)."

MAC address settings

IMPORTANT: Configuring Virtual Connect to assign server blade MAC addresses requires careful planning to ensure that the configured range of MAC addresses is used once within the environment. Duplicate MAC addresses on an Ethernet network can result in a server network outage.

Each server blade Ethernet NIC ships with a factory default MAC address. The MAC address is a 48-bit number that uniquely identifies the Ethernet interface to other devices on the network. While the hardware ships with default MAC addresses, Virtual Connect can assign MAC addresses that override the factory default MAC addresses while the server remains in that Virtual Connect enclosure.

Always establish control processes to ensure that a unique MAC address range is used in each Virtual Connect domain in the environment. Reusing address ranges could result in server network outages caused by multiple servers having the same MAC addresses.

If using Virtual Connect assigned MAC addresses, the following notes apply:

•Virtual Connect automatically assigns two MAC addresses to each VC-Enet connection in the server profile, a primary address for the Ethernet NIC, and an iSCSI MAC address for use by multifunction gigabit server adapters, such as the HP NC373m PCI Express Dual Port Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter. Only the primary MAC address is used by standard (not multifunction) Ethernet devices.

•If a server blade is moved from a Virtual Connect managed enclosure to a non-Virtual Connect enclosure, the local MAC addresses on that server blade are automatically returned to the original factory defaults.

•If a server blade is removed from a bay within a Virtual Connect domain and installed in another bay in the same Virtual Connect domain or in a bay in a different domain, it is assigned the new set of addresses appropriate for that server location.

Virtual Connect server profiles 178