HP has now released their Onboard Administrator (OA) 3.30 firmware after last week’s Flex-10 Firmware 3.18 release which had recommended the 3.30 OA although it hadn’t been released yet.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3188465&swItem=MTX-bc11d40cf7b0465eacabefb649&prodNameId=3188475&swEnvOID=4040&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=2
Looks like it is a bug fix release as there are no enhancement or new features.
I’ve updated my Flex-10 ESX pre-requisites post for the OA 3.30 release although I’m not updating my recommendation for Flex-10 to 3.18 yet pending further reports and testing.
HP has released new Flex-10 firmware 3.18 and marked it as a * RECOMMENDED * update.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3884098&swItem=MTX-accbd1282d3d4118bfe063350a&prodNameId=3884099&swEnvOID=4091&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=1
Problems Fixed:
• Resolved an issue where a Virtual Connect Domain with large number of networks may experience an unstable network condition when a VC Ethernet module is restarted in one of the following circumstances:
* A power-cycle (Off/On) from the Onboard Administrator
* A reset/reboot from the Onboard Administrator
* A removal/reinsert into the Interconnect Bay
Best to wait and see if there are any issues before applying but early adopters can go right ahead!
Interestingly the Firmware Dependency lists the following:
OA: Minimum firmware version: 3.11 / Recommended version: 3.30
OA firmware 3.30 has not been released yet so could be imminent. The link HP gives to list firmware dependency doesn’t work, HP isn’t known for having a great support site!
When deploying HP Flex-10 switches in your racks, one of the things that is often overlooked is ensuring you have the correct upstream switch port configuration.
Your Flex-10 switches make up only one half of your network topology and need to be connected to upstream switches to complete the networking design. I’m going to use the example of Cisco upstream switches.
I’ve blogged previously on my ideas for a Flex-10 ESX design with simplicity and scalability, See Part 1 and Part 2
Ensuring your Flex-10 uplinks are connected to your upstream switch ports correctly is vital to ensure your Flex-10 infrastructure is always available and stable.
You may also have separate teams of people who look after your Flex-10 switches and your upstream Cisco switches as HP Flex-10 has often been sold as a networking technology which is easy enough to implement by server engineers and so may not be supported by your networking team. Always ensure your teams are talking to each other to fully understand the technology as finger pointing when things go wrong is the last thing you need!
HP has published a few documents to assist Cisco people in understanding Flex-10:
Read more…
I’ve had confirmation from HP that the ESX 4.1 bnx2x 1.62.15.v41.2 driver is now officially supported with Flex-10. Although the supported driver is listed as 1.62.15.v41, the .2 at the end of the driver available for download was to facilitate a small change but has been fully tested and certified.
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/dt_esx41_broadcom_netxtremeii_032311/ZHcqYnR0anBiZCpwcA==
My previous post was after confirmation from HP on 31st March saying this driver was not supported but a new version of the HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 NICs Solution Recipe which is dated 23 March and says released on the 27th March wasn’t available when I checked with HP or looked on their site (although HP’s site isn’t the easiest to find anything on!).
I’ve had confirmation that this driver supports DCC/SmartLink and also contains the heap memory increase.
If you are upgrading from the 1.60.50.v41.2 driver you will not need to remove the previous heap workaround step.
Unfortunately, VMWare’s Compatibility Guides have not been updated to reflect the latest version, they still say the 1.60.50.v4.1.2 driver is the supported version for HP Virtual Connect, so hopefully HP and VMware will address this soon.
http://www.vmware.com.tt/resources/compatibility/detail.php?device_cat=io&device_id=9404
This is a great step as the 1.62 driver versions for both ESX 4.1 and ESX 4.0 are now both available for deployment from Update Manager. I really hope this is the end of chasing blade Nic driver versions to work with Flex-10.
As usual, my Flex-10 ESX pre-requisites post has been updated.
VMware has released some new Broadcom bnx2x Nic Drivers which are used in HP blades for the HP NC532 Nics.
As with most bnx2x network card driver updates and HP Flex-10 there’s good news, bad news and unfortunately also the usual confusing news.
Let’s clear up the confusing news first.
There have been two new drivers released:
- ESX(i) 4.0 – 1.62.11.v40.1
- ESX(i) 4.1 – 1.62.15.v41.2
VMWare’s Compatibility Guides show which drivers are supported with which ESX versions:
http://www.vmware.com.tt/resources/compatibility/detail.php?device_cat=io&device_id=9404
Under Model Details there is now a note which says the 1.60.50.v4.1.2 driver version is the supported version for HP Virtual Connect, so it is saying the new version 1.62.15.v41.2 is NOT supported with HP Virtual Connect:
Read more…
HP has released its latest Flex-10 Firmware version 3.17 which has been deemed * RECOMMENDED *.
It doesn’t seem to appear under a search for HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Module for c-Class BladeSystem and ESX 4.0 yet which is odd but HPs support site isn’t known to be the easiest place to find things!
The 3.17 firmware has been posted here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=4144084&swItem=MTX-1f73cecf68c14f2c877b209d09&prodNameId=4144085&swEnvOID=1113&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0
Looks like the DNS issue and PXE issues have been addressed along with a whole long list of other fixes.
Hopefully we are getting closer to a stable firmware release as the recent issues have been very troubling.
HP has discovered a bug in their latest Flex-10 firmware version 3.15.
The bug occurs when you have blank blades going through continuous PXE boot cycles. Each time a blade PXE boots Virtual Connect sees the status of the port change and it triggers a process in Virtual Connect that queries the status of all its NICs, which runs but it does not release the memory used.
When Virtual Connect runs out of memory it restarts some of its internal network processes, which causes a network outage. Reseating the Flex-10 switches clears the memory leak and depending on how many blades are power cycling, it can take a couple of days for the memory to run out again. If you are seeing seemingly random network disconnections, this could be the cause.
Future versions of Virtual Connect will apparently have memory usage graphs which may help.
Make sure you power off any blades you are not using rather than letting them power cycle to avoid the issue.
Apparently a 3.17 driver version is imminent from HP which will fix this issue as well as the DNS issue.
HP has released an updated advisory for their serious DNS issue as described in my previous post.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02720395&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=101&prodSeriesId=3540808&prodTypeId=329290
There’s now a lot more information on the problem and three scenarios described depending on how you handle IP addressing for your environment and the steps on how to fix it.
I’ve heard HP is seeing this as a global problem affecting many clients so make sure you are protected.
Updated with further information from HP:
http://www.wooditwork.com/2011/03/08/update-hp-flex-10-dns-issue-causing-network-outages/
HP has released an advisory explaining a serious issue with their blade Flex-10 Switches and DNS which can cause the Flex-10 switches to lose connectivity with each other in a Virtual Connect (VC) domain and cause network outages.
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02720395&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=3794423&prodTypeId=329290
Apparently this is affecting a large number of customers although it seems to have taken some time to filter through the HP support system so if you are experiencing lost connectivity to your switches and network drops and have logged a call make sure the support engineer is aware of this advisory.
Read more…
ESX 4.1 update 1 was released recently which started the investigation again into the Broadcom bnx2x driver versions which are important in HP Blade installations.
Here’s a timeline of what drivers have been released:
- 13/07/2010 – ESX 4.1 Base install (Build 260247) installs the 1.54.1.v41.1-1 driver.
- 29/11/2010 – VMware release a bnx2x driver update available through Update Manager which updates the driver to 1.54.1.v41.1-2
- 29/11/2010 – VMware release a bnx2x driver update NOT available through Update Manager for driver version 1.60.50.v41.2
- 10/02/2011 – ESX 4.1 Update 1 released (Build 348481) which has the 1.54.1.v41.1-2 driver included
- 10/02/2011 – VMware release another bnx2x driver update available through Update Manager which installs a 1.54.1.v41.1-2 driver version.
Read more…
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