HP C7000 blade servers

[holden j caufield]

Will be getting these and I'm about 3000 miles from home so I'd like to set it up quickly and go home.

 

[tomt4535]

Use OA firmware 2.32. I have 15 of these enclosures between my lab and DC with all sorts of different blades in them. I just got a new one in on Monday with 2.41 firmware on the OA and I had weird issues with the secondary OA not keeping the IP and other config settings and not pinging when I failed it over. Once I downgraded to 2.32, I haven't had a problem. Otherwise, these are quick and easy to install.

Do you have VC on it? VC is probably one of the greatest benefits of the enclosures. I moved around 2 servers last night in the enclosure, and it was as easy as moving the box, then changing the VC profile. I didn't have to make any changes to the SAN or network at all, everything worked perfect.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I run 2 fully populated ones at work, they are a snap to setup. What sort of questions are you looking for in particular? If it makes any difference, we are running bl460 G1 and G5 blades

 

[Cooky]

We have a dozen of those at work...can't comment on the server part, but the switch blades are awesome.
You can stack them up just like the 3750's, and have just one logical switch to manage.

 

[holden j caufield]

Thanks for the info guys. They flew me in and the shipment got delayed. I'm only by myself out here at a datacenter in Washington DC area, Ashburn, Va and was wondering how heavy some of this stuff was. Can 1 person set this up? How hard will it be to get in cabinent.

Any tips at all on the setup will be appreciated because I've set up stuff before been 90% complete and then realized this wasn't the best way to setup and had to start over. Anybody want to help out, my company will compensate you and maybe you'll have job in the near future because I hate traveling.

 

[tomt4535]

Its going to be difficult to put that in a rack by yourself. Hopefully you are putting it on the bottom of a rack. There is a huge copper plate in between the 2 backplanes that keeps interference down. That weighs a ton. You can strip everything out of it, all the servers, interconnects and even the whole interconnect bay out of it, that should help. Once you get it up on to the rails, it shouldnt be awful to push/pull that guy up into the rack.

 

[holden j caufield]

ok thanks. Yes it will be going on the bottom. I hoping it finally arrives tomorrow. Life on the road isn't very fun.

 

[spidey07]

You'll need help. I don't do servers but I've seen server guys put them in and it's not something you could do safely by yourself.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: spidey07
You'll need help. I don't do servers but I've seen server guys put them in and it's not something you could do safely by yourself.

If you can move it yourself you can easily do it yourself. They weigh a couple hundred pounds

 

[holden j caufield]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer

Originally posted by: spidey07
You'll need help. I don't do servers but I've seen server guys put them in and it's not something you could do safely by yourself.

If you can move it yourself you can easily do it yourself. They weigh a couple hundred pounds

Stripped and empty? I'm screwed. I hope the colo has people I can hire for 30 min

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Max Enclosure Weight
Unboxed 450 lb (204 Kg)
Shipping 493 lb (223.6 Kg)

Remove the blades and all I/O cards and you still got enough weight for 2 people easily and possibly a third. Good thing is they come with handles on the side.

You might be able to move it yourself if you remove the PSU's, (up to 6) fans (think 12) and then give yourself a hernia man handling it.

 

[tomt4535]

I think its only 100lbs when its completely stripped, not too bad i guess. Once you get it up on the rails, just gotta push it in

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: tomt4535
I think its only 100lbs when its completely stripped, not too bad i guess. Once you get it up on the rails, just gotta push it in

Its still a large size and very bulky, while it COULD be done by one person, it wouldnt be the smartest/safest thing to do

 

[spidey07]

All
People
Should
Take
Necessary
Do
Precaution

 

[holden j caufield]

haha small world. Guys a few cabinets over all the from halfway across the world got there c7000 in. Stripped it bare and took out the backing and it seems like it's do able by 1 person on the bottom rails. Turns out the cabinets are too tight at the bottom and it won't slide in on the bottom so they had mount it in the middle. Hope it's just their cabinet or their server that was off because that doesn't sound like something I'd like to run into.

BTW if you're ever traveling in ashburn you need to buy cases of beer cause their isn't jack to do in this city.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: holden j caufield
haha small world. Guys a few cabinets over all the from halfway across the world got there c7000 in. Stripped it bare and took out the backing and it seems like it's do able by 1 person on the bottom rails. Turns out the cabinets are too tight at the bottom and it won't slide in on the bottom so they had mount it in the middle. Hope it's just their cabinet or their server that was off because that doesn't sound like something I'd like to run into.

BTW if you're ever traveling in ashburn you need to buy cases of beer cause their isn't jack to do in this city.

We had no problems putting ours on the bottom, must have had their rack jacked up

 

[holden j caufield]

Noob question and it's going to finally arrive and it'll be the first blade system for us. it's going to be almost 3k miles away from where I live, I've got about 10 different ISOs varying from 2k3 R2, 2k8 non hyper V, 2k8 ent etc. What's the best way to do this? Bootable USB 2.5" drive?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

You can use the integrated ILO console. Connect to it via webbrowser and then direct it to the iso stored either on network storage server or could be a desktop or laptop. Dont really need to have the storage physically connected

 

[holden j caufield]

Thanks, racked it myself. Kind of a pain in the rear but not too bad

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Originally posted by: holden j caufield
Thanks, racked it myself. Kind of a pain in the rear but not too bad

Heh, you must work out. I just racked another and fully populated, took me and another guy to lift while another guided it.

Either that or you did it smart and removed everything

 

[holden j caufield]

yeah I removed everything, any tips for a quick install of the OS?

 

[holden j caufield]

apparently it doesn't like some isos

or this ilo is the flakiest thing ever. Much prefer ipmi on the supermicros

 

[holden j caufield]

Thing is pretty cool, racked 2 of them by myself, last one came in at 11am and my flight left at 4pm. I don't think I've ever unpacked and racked a 10u faster in my life. ILO is cool and mounting the iso from a NAS works fine but it was really slow.

Have not bothered with the manual but I've got 16 blades on 1. 8 will be w2k3 x64 enterprise 8 will wk8 x64. I've done 2 (1 2k3 and 1 2k8) and it's slow via the iLo plus I have this weird 2 mouse thing and on the edge of screens it doesn't work well. What's the best way to deploy the other 7 2k3 and 7 2k8's. Or is the deployment feature something we need to buy from HP?

 

[tomt4535]

The Rapid Deployment pack from HP will help you with that, but that costs money. You could have set up a DVD drive or USB drive with the iso files on it in the USB port on the OA, but now you are gone that might not work. Im not positive, but there is some sort of mouse settings on the administration page in the iLO.

 

[holden j caufield]

ok thx for the info. There has to be some work around for this I would think beside buying the rapid deployment.