HP Virtual Connect for c-Class BladeSystem Version 2.30 User Guide

Network management 67
For additional information, see "MAC address settings (on page 67)."
MAC Address Settings
IMPORTANT: Configuring Virtual Connect to assign server blade MAC addresses requires
careful planning to ensure that the configured range of MAC addresses is used once within
the environment. Duplicate MAC addresses on an Ethernet network can result in a server
network outage.
Each server blade Ethernet NIC ships with a factory default MAC address. The MAC address is a 48-bit
number that uniquely identifies the Ethernet interface to other devices on the network. While the hardware
ships with default MAC addresses, Virtual Connect has the ability to assign MAC addresses that will
override the factory default MAC addresses while the server remains in that Virtual Connect enclosure.
When configured to assign MAC addresses, Virtual Connect securely manages the MAC addresses by
accessing the physical NICs through the enclosure Onboard Administrator and the iLO interfaces on the
individual server blades.
Always establish control processes to ensure that a unique MAC address range is used in each Virtual
Connect domain in the environment. Reusing address ranges could result in server network outages
caused by multiple servers having the same MAC addresses.
If using Virtual Connect assigned MAC addresses, the following notes apply: