HP Imaging and Printing Security Center 2.0 - VMware and Dynamic MAC Addressing

HP IMAGING AND PRINTING

SECURITY CENTER 2.0

TECHNICAL BRIEF

VMware and Dynamic MAC Addressing

To decrease IT infrastructure costs, many have opted for the efficiency and flexibility that server

virtualization provides. Success in a virtualized server environment is usually determined by the

appropriate balancing and dynamic provisioning of CPU, Memory, Storage, and Network

resources. The HP Imaging and Printing Security Center (HP IPSC) is supported in VMware

virtualized server environments. This document discusses possible licensing and communication

issues, when the VMware virtual machine is using dynamic assignment of virtual network adapter

MAC addresses.

As with other licensed software products, the HP IPSC node license files are locked to the network

adapter’s MAC address of the server hosting the HP IPSC service. When a VMware virtual machine

is powered on, VMware automatically assigns a dynamic MAC address to the selected virtual

network adapter. However, VMware states that it cannot guarantee a given virtual machine will be

dynamically assigned the same MAC address every time it is powered on. If this situation occurs,

HP IPSC will fail to recognize the node license file and be unable to assign a device license.

Figure 1 provides an example of the licensing service functioning properly. Figure 2 provides an

example of the potential failure when the node locked MAC address changes. Once again, if the

MAC address changes on the bound network adapter, the HP IPSC Print License Service will fail to

function properly.

Figure 1 Figure 2

MAC Address Match in License File

MAC Address

Mism

atch in License

File

PAGE 1
HP IMAGING AND PRINTING SECURITY CENTER 2.0 TECHNICAL BRIEF VMware and Dynamic MAC Addressing To decrease IT infrastructure costs, many have opted for the efficiency and flexibility that server virtualization provides. Success in a virtualized server environment is usually determined by the appropriate balancing and dynamic provisioning of CPU, Memory, Storage, and Network resources. The HP Imaging and Printing Security Center (HP IPSC) is supported in VMware virtualized server environments.
PAGE 2
In addition to the possible licensing issue, dynamic MAC addressing can cause HP IPSC communication problems. VMware states that it cannot guarantee to automatically assign “unique” MAC addresses for virtual machines running on multiple host systems. Not exclusive to HP IPSC, network communication problems might arise, for example, if the virtual network adapters on different physical servers share the same subnet and are dynamically assigned the same MAC address.