HP ProLiant BL660c HP BladeSystem Networking Reference Architecture: HP Virtua - Page 4

Important: Even though the Virtual Connect FlexFabric module supports Stacking, stacking only applies to Ethernet traffic. FC uplinks cannot be consolidated, as it is not possible to stack the FC ports, nor provide a multi-hop DCB bridging fabric today. Designing an HP FlexFabric Architecture for VMware vSphere In this design, two HP ProLiant c-Class 7000 Enclosures with Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules are stacked to form a single Virtual Connect management domain4. By stacking Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules, customer can realize the following benefits:  Management control plane consolidated  More efficient use of WWID, MAC and Serial Number Pools  Provide greater uplink port flexibility and bandwidth  Profile management across stacked enclosures Shared Uplink Sets provide administrators the ability to distribute VLANs into discrete and defined Ethernet Networks (vNet.) These vNets can then be mapped logically to a Server Profile Network Connection allowing only the required VLANs to be associated with the specific server NIC port. This also allows customers the flexibility to have various network connections for different physical Operating System instances (i.e. VMware ESX host and physical Windows host.) As of Virtual Connect Firmware 3.305 release, the following Shared Uplink Set rules apply per domain:  1000 Unique VLANs (Ethernet Networks) per Virtual Connect Domain  162 Unique Server Mapped VLANs per Server Profile Network Connection Important: When using FlexNICs, the 162 Unique Server Mapped VLAN maximum is an aggregate of all FlexNICs that belong to the same 10Gb Physical Interface. A FlexHBA also counts as a single VNET against the 162 total. By providing two stacked Enclosures, this will allow for not only Virtual Connect FlexFabric module failure, but also Enclosure failure. The uplink ports assigned to each Shared Uplink Set (SUS) were vertically offset to allow for horizontal redundancy purposes, as shown in Figure 1-2. IP-based storage (NFS and/or iSCSI) can be dedicated and segregated by a separate vNet and assigned uplink port. This design approach provides administrators to dedicate a network (physically switched, directly connected or logical within a Shared Uplink Set) to provide access to IP-based storage arrays. 4 Only available with Virtual Connect Manager Firmware 2.10 or greater. Please review the Virtual Connect Manager Release Notes for more information regarding domain stacking requirements: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/c-class-tech-installing.html 5 Only when the Expanded VLAN Capacity feature is enabled in the Domain (Ethernet -> Advanced Settings) 4