I still get questions from time to time in regard to Virtual Connect initial configuration so I made this video. Hopefully it can help users to get VC up quickly. In the video, I also explained some common VC terms like Shared Uplink Set, Multiple Networks, native/untagged network, Smartlink etc.
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Thanks for this video. I am new to HP Virtual Connect infrastructure and this was very helpful. One thing I have not been able to find out is if you can have 2 VC Flex-10 Ethernet modules in Bay 5-6 without having any VC modules in the other bays. We have a C7000 enclosure that we want to install a VC module in but bay 1-2 have Cisco switches already and bays 3-4 have B-series FC swtches. I can’t find anything in the installation guide about only having VC modules in bays 5-6.
it’s OK to place VC module in bay5/6 or 3/4. You have to make sure you have Mezz2 cards on blades to connect VC modules in bay5/6.
The feature supporting VC modules in bays other than 1/2 came in version 3.10(about 2 years back). The best doc for this kind of H/W installation and placement is VC Setup and Installation Guide(SIG). You can find the latest 4.01 SIG from my VC bookmark tab off the blog. Page 15 talks in more details and gave you some examples.
[Bay 1] Other/empty
[Bay 2] Other/empty
[Bay 3] VC Ethernet*
[Bay 4] VC Ethernet
[Bay 5] Other/empty
[Bay 6] Other/empty
[Bay 7] Other/empty
[Bay 8] Other/empty
*Requires minimum VC v3.10 firmware
Thanks for the response! I didn’t see my exact layout in the guide so I wasn’t sure. All the blades will have NC542m or NC532m mezz2 cards so that shouldn’t be an issue.
thanks for the comments also.
Can you provide an easy to understand document on what really happens to the frames inside the Virtual Connect? I am interested in knowing how the Q-in-Q is used, how broadcast and multicast traffic are handled.
you can try google “understanding virtual connect traffic flow” and the first link has more in depth discussion on this.
I have an understanding on how the traffic flows. What I really want to know is to look at actual content (inside the frame) while the frame moves from the NIC through VC and exit the VC…and the reverse. I would like to know how the frames are delivered to the correct machine (including VMs) and how the MAC addresses are maintained.
There is one section in the white paper talking about frame header inside VC.
VC forward packets by layer 2 MAC table with the exception that it doesn’t forward packets back to redundant uplink to prevent loop. you can do “show interconnect-mac-table enc0:1” to see internal MAC table info.
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Blog on HP Virtual Connect and BladeSyst
Thank you so much for this video!
You really saved my day tomorrow 😉
Great Blog, which I will follow. We initially setup C7000 in pure pass-thru. Now trying to do VC for networking with Flex-10/10D. Can I load the two VC modules to 7&8 or would you start over in 1,2. I have 6 BL460 Gen8 running with two of them ESX5.5.
Thanks/George
Hi George,
use slot 1/2 if you want to use Gen8 FlexLOM CNA card
use slot 3/4 if you want to use Gen8 Mezz1 CNA card
use slot 5/6 if you want to use Gen8 Mezz2 CNA card
do NOT use slot 7/8 as no 10G cards on server are internally wired to slot7/8
the above is c7000 internal wire mapping between blades and I/O bay and VC and any other I/O modules need to follow the same rule.
Thanks
Hongjun
Hongjun,
Is there any link where can I get the VC Simulator ?
Hi Albert,
VC Simulator is HP internal and partner accessible.
https://partner.hpe.com/login
Once logged in to https://partner.hpe.com, simply search for vc simulator. You can find a link to ‘Virtual Connect Simulator v4.45 for Channel Partners’