HP Virtual Connect: Common Myths, Misperceptions, and Objections, Second Edition

A19: No, only HP branded SFP and XFP modules are supported.

Q20: Will upgrading the VC firmware require an outage?

A20: In general, HP recommends upgrading VC firmware during a scheduled maintenance window. However,

VC is able to perform a rolling, non-intrusive upgrade of all modules so long as redundancy is configured

throughout the solution.

Q21: How fast should I expect a failed VC uplink port to failover to a standby VC uplink port?

A21: 5 seconds or less for an optimized configuration

Q22: How fast should I expect a port channel (LAG) to failover?

A22: 5 seconds or less for an optimized configuration.

Q23: How fast should I expect my teamed NICs to failover when a vNet fails over between uplinks?

A23: 5 seconds or less for an optimized configuration.

Q24: Can I connect VC-Enet’s XFP ports to XENPACK or X2 ports on a Cisco switch?

A24: Cisco states that XENPACK, X2, and XFP modules are compatible if using the same port type. Since VC

only supports 10GB-LR and 10GB-SR, Virtual Connect should be compatible with XENPACK, X2, and XFP

modules from Cisco as long as they are using 10GBASE-LR or 10GBASE-SR modules. Since Cisco supports

several port types, several transceiver types, and many different interface modules for their switches, HP does not

test every combination.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/modules/ps5455/prod_brochure0900aecd8034bba6.pdf

Q25: Is Virtual Connect compatible with layer 3 protocols other than IP? For instance, does VC support IPv6,

IPX, AppleTalk, etc.?

A25: Virtual Connect only supports IP (IPv4) on its management interfaces (Web, SSH CLI, or SNMP). In

reference to Virtual Connect’s bridging functionality, VC supports any layer 3 or higher protocol in use on server

blades. Since Virtual Connect is a layer 2 device, it is layer 3 protocol agnostic. Meaning, the server blades

can communicate through VC using any upper layer protocol (for example, IPv4, IPv6, IPX, AppleTalk, etc.) that’s

carried within an Ethernet frame.

Q26: Does Virtual Connect support jumbo frames?

A26: Yes, VC-Enet supports Ethernet frames sizes up to 9216 bytes.

Q27: Does Virtual Connect support EtherChannel/802.3ad/SLB on the downlinks to the server NICs? Can I use

LACP port trunking on the server NICs connected to Virtual Connect?

A27: No, Virtual Connect does not support EtherChannel/802.3ad on the downlinks to server NIC ports.

Typically, EtherChannel/802.3ad support is usually to increase the available bandwidth. With VC Flex-10 and

the HP NC532-series, customers can increase available bandwidth for servers without requiring LAG protocols.