Flex-10 overview – HP 1.10GB Virtual Connect Ethernet Module for c-Class BladeSystem User Manual
Page 98
Server management 98
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Ethernet profile connection entries are evenly distributed across all of the blades in a multi-blade server.
For example, if a multi-blade server is comprised of 4 blades then the 1st, 5th, 9th, etc Ethernet
connections are assigned to the first blade, the 2nd, 6th, 10th etc Ethernet connections are assigned to
the second blade, and so forth. The mapping of connection entries to specific ports on a blade are done
the same way as for other full-height blades.
For more information, see "Port assignment (on page
)."
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FC profile connection entries are mapped to blades such that all of the FC HBAs on the first blade are
mapped first, then the HBAs on the second blade, and so on. When a profile is first created it will have
enough FC profile connections for the HBAs on one blade. More FC connections can be added only
after the profile has been assigned to a multi-blade server. The maximum number of FC connections
allowed is N times the original number of entries where N is the number of blades in the multi-blade
server that a profile is assigned to.
There are rare situations where VCM will not be able to retrieve information about all of the blades in
multi-blade server (such as certain hardware failures that keep a blade from being in a normal state prior to
applying power). In such cases VCM displays the Major error status icon. Where text is shown with the icon,
the text is “Missing Data”. This is an indication of a serious problem with the multi-blade server that needs to
be fixed. VCM cannot properly map profile connections to a server when it is in this state.
Multi-blade servers do not support iSCSI or FCoE.
Flex-10 overview
Flex-10 technology is exclusive to Virtual Connect environments, and it allows Flex-10-enabled 10Gb NICs
to enumerate as four FlexNICs per 10Gb port. These FlexNICs are actual PCIe functions, and they appear to
the operating system or hypervisor as discrete NICs, each with its own driver instance.