HP Virtual Connect MAC Addresses and WWNs

One of the benefits of using HP Virtual Connect in C-class blade Chassis is the ability to have MAC Addresses and WWNs set on a server bay as opposed to the physical server.  I’m sure you’re aware that each device that has a network card has a Media Access Control (MAC) address which is a burned in identifier that makes that NIC unique.

HP decided that it might be nice to control those MAC Addresses in their blade chassis.  Before you setup any server profiles, you have the option to choose “Virtual Connect Assigned MAC Addresses”.  These are addresses that are assigned to each server bay so that no matter what blade is put into the bay, the MAC addresses will stay the same.  You might find this very useful in the case of a failed blade.  If you receive a new blade from HP and throw it into the same bay, it will retain all of the same MAC Addresses and thus look the same to your switches.

In the screenshot below you can see that I’ve chosen the static factory default MAC Addresses and have deployed server profiles already so I’m not allowed to change the setting.

If you choose the “Virtual Connect Assigned MAC Addresses” option you will need to make sure that no other blade chasses are using the same range.  Obviously network switches will not like having multiple devices on their network with the same MAC Addresses.  To handle this, HP requires that you pic a range of addresses.  You have 64 pre-defined ranges to choose from and they are listed below. (from the HP Support Docs)

More useful (in my opinion) than being able to set MAC Addresses is the ability to set your WWNs from pre-defined ranges.  This is great if you’re a consultant because you can have your zoning script ready to go before you even show up.  See the example at the bottom of this post.

In the same manner, HP has pre-defined WWN ranges for your fibre channel connections.  Those are also listed below.  (from the HP Support Docs)

Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager uses a different set of MAC Addresses and WWNs.  It has the ability to hand out over 131,000 addresses and manages more than one Virtual Connect Domain.  (from the HP Support Docs)

switch(config)#fcalias name Blade1 vsan 100
switch(config-fcalias)# member wwnn 50:06:0B:00:00:C2:62:00
switch(config-fclias)# exit

switch(config)#fcalias name Blade2 vsan 100
switch(config-fcalias)# member wwnn 50:06:0B:00:00:C2:62:02
switch(config-fclias)# exit

switch(config)# zone name Bay1-SP1 vsan 100
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias Blade1
switch(config-zone)# member fcalias StorageProcessor1
switch(config-zone)# exit
switch(config)#

switch(config)# zoneset BladeSet vsan 100
switch(config-zoneset)# member Bay1-SP1
switch(config-zoneset)# member Bay2-SP1
switch(config-zoneset)# exit

switch(config)# zoneset activate name BladeSet vsan 100

switch(config)# write mem