IBM 8677 manual Sharing resources among the blade servers

Chapter 5. Sharing resources among the blade servers

Your Eserver BladeCenter Type 8677 unit provides resources that are available to all blade servers at all times, such as power modules, cooling, system management, and network I/O modules; no user intervention is required. Some resources are selectable for use by a single blade server at a time, such as the CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port unit (media tray), or the keyboard-video-mouse unit. There are several ways to select resources for a blade server:

vEach blade server has two selection buttons on the front of the blade: CD and

.

–To switch the keyboard, video, and mouse to a specific blade server, press

the button on that blade server.

–To switch the CD-ROM, diskette drive, and USB port to a specific blade server, press the CD button on that blade server.

The management module immediately assigns the resource to the blade server requesting it.

vYou can use the management module Web interface to change ownership of the keyboard, video, and mouse, or the CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port (Blade tasks→ Remote control).

vYou can press keyboard keys in the following sequence to switch KVM control between blade servers:

NumLock NumLock blade_server_number Enter

Where blade_server_number is the two-digit number for the blade bay in which the blade server is installed. When using some keyboards, such as the 28L3644 (37L0888) keyboard, you will need to hold down the Shift key while entering this key sequence.

Notes:

1.It can take up to 20 seconds for the operating system in the switched-to blade server to recognize the CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port, or the keyboard, video, and mouse.

2.If you install Microsoft Windows 2000 on a blade server while it is not the current owner of the keyboard, video, and mouse, the first time the blade server requests ownership after the operating system has been installed, it can take up to 1 minute for the operating system to recognize the devices (this is a one-time-only occurrance).

3.The operating system in the blade server must provide USB support for the blade server to recognize and use the keyboard, mouse, CD-ROM drive, and diskette drive. The BladeCenter unit uses USB for internal communication with these devices.

4.You can use the management-module Web interface to enable or disable the select buttons (Blade tasks→ Remote control) on the blade servers.

5.The monitor attached to the BladeCenter management module normally shows the video output from the blade server that is the current owner of the keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM). When there is no actively selected video from any blade server, the video from blade server 14 is routed to the management module. While the management module is restarting, there is temporarily no

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