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Posts Tagged ‘Flex-10’

HP’s new management appliance OneView updated to 1.1

July 4th, 2014 No comments

HP has updated its new all singing all dancing management appliance, OneView to 1.1

This is now available for download after being announced at HP Discover last month.

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HP OneView will be the ultimate replacement for HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM), HP Insight Control and HP Intelligent Provisioning. It is delivered as a virtual appliance running on a hypervisor.

HP is putting a lot of effort into OneView and really trying to reimagine server management. I was never a fan of HPSIM as I felt it was unnecessarily cumbersome, HP has specifically said one of the goals of OneView is to make server management far easier and quicker with a lighter touch. In fact they are not rushing to add functionality to OneView but taking a pragmatic approach and only adding what is absolutely needed. HPs answer to Vblock is its Converged Systems which are built, configured and managed by OneView so HP has skin in the management game. Converged infrastructure is not just connecting hardware together but requires converged management which OneView aims to deliver.

Moving over to OneView is going to be a long process however as OneView has been designed to manage only Gen8 and future servers with just a little bit of management available for G7 servers. Far more complicated though is there is no migration path from Virtual Connect to OneView, you need to delete your virtual connect domains and recreate them in OneView which means shutting down every blade in your domain (up to 4 chassis) and starting from scratch. HP calls this a transition, not a migration. Not all current Virtual Connect functionality is available in OneView so you may not even be able to configure your newly purchased chassis in OneView depending on your required network config.

Saying that, OneView is going to be the future of server management so you should be thinking in that direction for your future plans. One of the stumblers may be licensing, you need to purchase or upgrade existing management software licenses to use OneView.

What’s new with 1.1?

  • Now available as a Hyper-V appliance along with ESXi
  • You can now provision and manage 3PAR storage, integrating the configuration into server profiles.
  • Added support for the new 20/40 FlexFabric Modules
  • Virtual Connect support for untagged traffic and VLAN tunnelling (OneView was pretty hampered by this before).
  • BIOS settings as part of server profiles (nice one!)
  • Inventory views of Cisco Nexus 5000 switches and HP FEX module which will be very useful.
  • Server Profiles for Gen8 rack mount servers to update firmware and BIOS settings for DL360/DL380
  • HP Insight Control for VMware vCenter Server is now HP OneView for VMware vCenter
  • HP Insight Control for Microsoft System Center is now HP OneView for Microsoft System Center
  • HP Insight Control for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is now HP OneView for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Here’s all the documentation and another link with some of the others guides (HP, may be worth putting them all in one place).

Categories: HP Tags: , , , ,

WARNING: HP G2-G6 server nics killed by firmware update in HP SPP 2014.02

April 25th, 2014 6 comments

UPDATE 29/04/2014

HP has released an updated HP Service Pack for Proliant which fixes the issue.


 

HP has released a very serious customer advisory saying that some Broadcom Nics which are used in G2-G6 servers and blades could be killed by a firmware update component in their HP Service Pack for Proliant 2014.02.

Using HPSUM, HP SPP or Smart Components for VMware to update the “Comprehensive Configuration Management” (CCM) firmware version to 7.8.21 can kill the nics which would require a hardware swap out to fix!

I would suggest immediately removing the update from HPSUM or the SPP.

If you absolutely need to update the firmware, you can run the component manually and chose not to update CCM.

Affected Nics:

Any HP ProLiant server with any of the following Broadcom Nics:

  • HP NC373T PCIe Multifunction Gig Server Adapter
  • HP NC373F PCIe Multifunction Gig Server Adapter
  • HP NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC374m PCIe Multifunction Adapter
  • HP NC373m Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC324i PCIe Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC326i PCIe Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC326m PCI Express Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC325m PCIe Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC320i PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC320m PCI Express Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC382i DP Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC382T PCIe DP Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter
  • HP NC382m DP 1GbE Multifunction BL-c Adapter
  • HP NC105i PCIe Gigabit Server Adapter

HP SPP Components

Linux:

  • CP018941.scexe and CP018942.scexe – v2.9.21
  • CP021160.scexe and CP021161.scexe – v2.9.24
  • CP021536.scexe and CP021537.scexe – v2.9.26
  • CP021068.scexe and CP021069.scexe – v2.10.15
  • CP023112.scexe and CP023113.scexe – v2.10.16

Windows:

  • cp018467.exe and cp018468.exe – v4.0.0.22
  • cp021534.exe and cp021535.exe – v4.0.0.22 (B)
  • cp021547.exe and cp021547.exe – v 4.0.0.26

VMware:

  • CP019762.scexe – v1.0.21
  • CP021532.scexe – v1.0.21.3
  • CP021849.scexe – v1.1.10

Wow, that’s a big one, I thought the days of terrible Broadcom firmware updates were beyond us, I guess not!

Categories: HP Tags: , , ,

HP releases Virtual Connect 4.2, adds sFlow

April 14th, 2014 1 comment

HP has a minor but recommended update for its Virtual Connect firmware to 4.20 which adds sFlow monitoring support which didn’t make it into the final Virtual Connect 4.01 along with support for a new HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric-20/40 F8 Module.

Some of the older Virtual Connect switches are being retired from a software support perspective so be aware that beginning with VC 3.70, the HP 1/10Gb VC Enet Module (399593-B22) and the HP 1/10Gb-F VC Enet Module (447047-B21) are no longer supported. Beginning with VC 4.10, the HP 4Gb VC-FC Module (409513-B21) is no longer supported.

There are quite a few fixes in this release so make sure you read the Release Notes.

There is also a serious bug to do with file permissions which means the config may not be saved so ensure you have a look at OA Customer Advisory c02639172 to see if any changes you have made may not be kept.

If you have multiple enclosures linked together, you should NOT upgrade directly from VC 2.x but rather upgrade first to 3.7 or 4.1 and then on to 4.2. This is due to a big that can cause a network outage.

You will need to use the 1.9 Virtual Connect Support Utility update the firmware which was released last September.

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP updates Virtual Connect to 4.10 and OA to 4.01, adds IPv6, SR-IOV, hiding FlexNics

October 28th, 2013 2 comments

Virtual Connect

HP has released a new version 4.10 of its Virtual Connect firmware for use in HP Blade Chassis. 4.10 is a minor update compared to the release of Virtual Connect 4.01 which added major functionality.

Virtual Connect 4.10 add IPv6 functionality which requires HP Service Pack for Proliant (SPP) 2013.09.0 (B), Onboard Administrator firmware 4.01 and minimum iLO firmware of 1.30.

The ability to hide unused FlexNics from the OS has been added which is very helpful. FlexNics that don’t have a mapping to any server profile connections are not presented to the OS. This means even if you have a full complement of 8 FlexNics defined in your profile but only map 4, your OS will only see 4 Nics rather than 8.

There is a new auto-deployment feature which allows you to configure a Virtual Connect domain from a centralised location using DHCP and TFTP.

SR-IOV support has also been added for direct VM access bypassing the vSwitch on certain FLBs and mezz cards for Gen 8 servers as well as BL620c G7 and BL680c G7.

There are a number of bug fixes as well including some Cisco DAC cables reporting as “Linked/Uncertified” when they should work.

Make sure to read the Release Notes in case there is anything else that may trip you up.

There is also an updated Virtual Connect Support Utility which can be used to update the firmware.

Onboard Administrator

HP has also released an update to the Onboard Administrator firmware to 4.01 which adds IPv6 support, a few new hardware models and a list of bug fixes.

There is a problem with Emulex firmware prior to version 4.1.450.7 that can result in SmartLink otherwise known as Device Control Channel (DCC) not working with a 10Gb physical link when you have full height blades. When you upgrade the OA, you may lose network connectivity. Update the NIC firmware and look at Customer Advisory c03600027 before upgrading the OA.

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP Virtual Connect Firmware upgrade may cause Server Profiles to be unassigned causing a network outage

July 25th, 2013 4 comments

HP has released a serious advisory that upgrading certain Virtual Connect firmware may cause server profiles to be unassigned which will cause a a network outage for your blades.

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The issue occurs when you have both single dense and double dense servers in your chassis and you are upgrading from Virtual Connect firmwares 3.10-3.60 up to Virtual Connect firmwares 3.70-3.75.

The upgrade process will complete successfully however the single dense server profiles will become unassigned which will cause a network outage for those specific server blades.

In order to fix this you will need to power down the affected blades, reassign the server profiles and power on the blades again! Ouch!

This doesn’t affect you if you are upgrading  from Virtual Connect firmware 3.70 to later firmware or going from Virtual Connect firmware 3.10 to anything below 3.70 such as 3.60 and won’t affect you if you only have single dense servers or double dense servers but not a mixture.

Virtual Connect firmware 4.01 which has been recently released fixes this but has a whole raft of new features that you may not be ready to implement so its worth being aware of this issue.

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , , ,

HP Virtual Connect 4.01 Update: RBAC and Multicast + some more

July 24th, 2013 2 comments

HP has released a significant firmware update to its Virtual Connect line of HP Blade chassis switches.

This is part 6 of a 6 part post on HP Virtual Connect 4.01:

  1. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: What’s New
  2. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Dual-hop FcOE support
  3. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation
  4. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Priority Queue QoS
  5. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: SNMP and sFlow enhancements
  6. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: RBAC and Multicast + some more

Custom role-based configuration

VC 4.01 now also adds more options for role customisation.

You can split your administration into Storage Admin, Server Admin, Network Admin and Domain User.

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You can now configure more operational permissions for these users and the GUI will show you what will change when you are about to apply the new permission.

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Read more…

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP Virtual Connect 4.01 Update: SNMP and sFlow enhancements

July 24th, 2013 4 comments

HP has released a significant firmware update to its Virtual Connect line of HP Blade chassis switches.

This is part 5 of a 6 part post on HP Virtual Connect 4.01:

  1. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: What’s New
  2. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Dual-hop FcOE support
  3. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation
  4. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Priority Queue QoS
  5. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: SNMP and sFlow enhancements
  6. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: RBAC and Multicast + some more

SNMP MIB enhancements

HP has added a number of enhancement to SNMP for VC 4.01. A number of old traps have been depreciated and new traps added to provide more granular error reporting.

A trap is sent for each VC managed element state change (domain, enclosure, module, port, network, fabric, server or profile). Each trap describes what changed and what caused the change. There is also improved correlation between Traps, SIM events and the VC system log.

For example, pre-4.01 you would only get a Domain status notification with a very generic message saying the status of the domain has changed for a number of different reasons, say when a network port is disconnected.

In 4.01, three traps will be received when a port is disconnected which will result in Network, Profile and Domain managed status traps being sent to management stations.

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Read more…

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP Virtual Connect 4.01 Update: Priority Queue QoS

July 24th, 2013 No comments

HP has released a significant firmware update to its Virtual Connect line of HP Blade chassis switches.

This is part 4 of a 6 part post on HP Virtual Connect 4.01:

  1. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: What’s New
  2. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Dual-hop FcOE support
  3. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation
  4. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Priority Queue QoS
  5. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: SNMP and sFlow enhancements
  6. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: RBAC and Multicast + some more

Priority Queue QoS

QoS is the next major enhancement in VC 4.01.

Pre VC 4.01 there is very little QoS for any traffic. Traffic flows on a first in first out basis, if there’s any congestion, the traffic at the tail of the queue is dropped.

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Basically you can control the Max that a FlexNic can transmit and receive but that’s it. VC performs no classification, marking, policing or traffic shaping. If there are any QoS traffic markings they are passed through VC in VLAN Tunnelled Mode but stripped out if using Mapped Mode with SUS.

Read more…

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP Virtual Connect 4.01 Update: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation

July 24th, 2013 3 comments

HP has released a significant firmware update to its Virtual Connect line of HP Blade chassis switches.

This is part 3 of a 6 part post on HP Virtual Connect 4.01:

  1. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: What’s New
  2. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Dual-hop FcOE support
  3. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation
  4. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Priority Queue QoS
  5. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: SNMP and sFlow enhancements
  6. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: RBAC and Multicast + some more

Min/Max Bandwidth Optimization

The next major enhancement in Virtual Connect 4.01 is a far more flexible bandwidth rate limit control. HP is finally catching up with Cisco UCS to offer this.

Virtual Connect has always had the option to set the available bandwidth for a FlexNic but this was a single value that didn’t have any rate adjustment based on traffic flow. This meant that although you may have 10Gb of bandwidth available to your LOM with multiple FlexNics, if one FlexNic was reaching the maximum of its allocated bandwidth yet another FlexNic on the same LOM was hardly utilised, VC couldn’t dynamically give more bandwidth to the starved FlexNic. You would have to go into VC and manually reconfigure the FlexNic bandwidth.

VC 4.01 is now able to share unused bandwidth proportionally among FlexNics and FlexHBAs. FlexNics/HBAs can now be configured with a minimum guaranteed and a maximum capped ingress bandwidth from the blade to VC.

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Read more…

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,

HP Virtual Connect 4.01 Update: Dual-hop FcOE support

July 24th, 2013 1 comment

HP has released a significant firmware update to its Virtual Connect line of HP Blade chassis switches.

This is part 2 of a 6 part post on HP Virtual Connect 4.01:

  1. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: What’s New
  2. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Dual-hop FcOE support
  3. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Min/Max Bandwidth Optimisation
  4. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: Priority Queue QoS
  5. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: SNMP and sFlow enhancements
  6. HP Virtual Connect 4.01: RBAC and Multicast + some more

Dual-hop FcOE support

Dual hop FCoE support is a major enhancement particularly for people looking to further converge their infrastructure from the chassis to ToR switches such as the Cisco Nexus 5000 series or HPs 5800/5900 series switches. This means you can keep your existing FC SAN fabric in place and connect it to your Cisco Nexus switches along with your LAN traffic. You then only need to connect your HP blade chassis to the Cisco Nexus switches and from there the LAN and SAN traffic is split off to their relevant upstream switches.

Dual-FcOE has arrived in VC 4.01 but HP are planning Multi-Hop FcOE support sometime in the future.

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(all graphics from HP, 4.01 was a minor update from 4.00)

Read more…

Categories: Flex-10, HP Tags: , ,