Appendix: Hp Virtual Connect Technology - Compaq BL10e - HP ProLiant - 512 MB RAM Introduction Manual

Appendix: HP Virtual Connect technology

Historically, an industry-standard server was bound individually to specific network connections as
indicated by the black lines on the left-hand side of Figure A-1. This meant that every time a server
was moved, added, or changed in the network, network administrators had to account for associated
MAC address changes. Similarly, storage administrators would have to update SAN fabric zoning to
account for WWN changes.
Figure A-1. Traditional server networking environment
With the introduction of HP Virtual Connect network virtualization technology with the BladeSystem
c-Class, IT administrators have a means to virtualize the network connections at the server edge. This
takes the existing LAN and SAN management interfaces and adds an abstraction layer, or
virtualization layer, between the edge of the server and the edge of the network. As a result, the
external networks connect to a shared resource pool of servers rather than to individual servers. LAN
and SAN administrators no longer have to change WWNs or MAC addresses every time the server
blade changes. In Figure A-2, the virtualization layer is identified as Virtual Connect Manager.
The firmware-based Virtual Connect Manager resident in each Virtual Connect module manages the
server connection profiles for a specific c-Class enclosure and preserves the identity of those network
connections into the data center.
For additional information about Virtual Connect technology for network connections, see the
technology brief titled "HP Virtual Connect technology implementation for the HP BladeSystem
c-Class" available at
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00814156/c00814156.pdf
and the HP website at www.hp.com/go/blades.
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