1. BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager (BOFM)
Martin Tross, Ben-Ami Yassour, Zvi Dubitzky, David Kohen, Orit Wasserman

2. Agenda Blade failover scenarios Main challenges BOFM concept
Address duplication avoidance
Summary

3. Blade Failover Scenarios

4. BladeCenter AMM IBM BladeCenter 14 Blades Shared I/O switches
Shared power supplies
AMM – Management Module
BladeCenter
AMM

5. Rip and replace Scenario
Blade Chassis
AMM X
Storage system
Application 1
Spare Blade
Storage Fabric
(SAS, SAN, iSCSI, PXE, NAS, IP )
Application 2
LUN 1
Application 3
Storage Controller
LUN 2
Application Data
Application 4
LUN 3

6. (SAS, SAN, iSCSI, PXE, NAS, IP )
N+1 Failover Scenario
Blade Chassis
AMM X
Storage system
Application 1
Storage Fabric
(SAS, SAN, iSCSI, PXE, NAS, IP )
Application 2
LUN 1
Application 3
Storage Controller
LUN 2
Application Data
Application 4
LUN 3
Spare Blade
Application 1
Spare Blade

7. Main challenges in blade failover
Storage path configuration
Network path configuration
Environment configuration
Slot based configurations
Boot image personalization – Ability to boot image on different blades
Detect hardware problem requiring blade replacement
Automatically verify that the spare blade has the right hardware and firmware

8. Storage path configuration – alternatives
Configure switches and storage controller
Configure initiator identity
Switch based solution (like NAT)
This option requires additional special hardware
Map all blades to all volumes, and restrict the access to the volumes not via WWN, for example: switch, HBA, driver, above driver, or hypervisor

9. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 2
Blade 1
VLAN A
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 2
VLAN B
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
Ethernet MAC addresses are assigned to blade slot by the Advanced Management Module

10. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 3
MAC 4
MAC 2
MAC 1
Blade 1
VLAN A
MAC 2
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 2
VLAN B
MAC 3
MAC 4
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
Ethernet MAC addresses are assigned to blade slot by the Advanced Management Module

11. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 3
MAC 2
MAC 1
Blade 1
VLAN A
MAC 2
Cisco or BNT switch
VLAN B
Blade 2
MAC 3
FAILED
MAC 4
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
New blade inherits I/O addresses move to new blade assigned to slot

12. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 3
MAC 2
MAC 1
Blade 1
VLAN A
MAC 2
Cisco or BNT switch
VLAN B
MAC 3
MAC 4
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
New blade inherits I/O addresses move to new blade assigned to slot

13. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 3
MAC 2
MAC 1
Blade 1
VLAN A
MAC 2
Cisco or BNT switch
Spare
VLAN B
MAC 3
MAC 4
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
New blade inherits I/O addresses move to new blade assigned to slot

14. Manage Your I/O with Open Fabric Manager
Advanced Management Module
MAC 1
MAC 4
MAC 4
MAC 3
MAC 3
MAC 2
MAC 1
Blade 1
VLAN A
MAC 2
Cisco or BNT switch
Spare
VLAN B
MAC 3
MAC 4
VLAN C
Cisco or BNT switch
Blade 14
VLAN D
New blade inherits I/O addresses move to new blade assigned to slot

15. BOFM Concept Slot based configuration
The addresses are assigned to a slot not a blade
Out of band apply of addresses – no OS involvement
When a blade is moved to a different slot it goes back to use the factory address
Store all addresses in a configuration file

16. BOFM Concept – cont.
Enable the user to make the HBA adapter use a virtual WWN/MAC instead of the factory addresses FC
NIC
SAS
New virtual WWNs are pushed to the blade in the following order
Address Manager (Director extension or embedded in MM)
AMM
Blade BMC
Blade BIOS
HBA adapter BIOS extension
Basic functionality
Basic capability to define virtual WWN/MAC addresses
Automatic blade replacement
Advanced functionality
Automatic failover

17. Apply BOFM configuration
Chassis 1
Write
Read and
compare
Chassis 2
Apply
User desktop
Chassis 3
Chassis 4
Storage
Chassis 5

18. Address duplication avoidance
Moving a blade to a different slot or chassis
Solution: when a blade is moved to a different slot/chassis it goes back to factory address, the AMM is responsible to assigning a new address
Duplicate address in the configuration file
Solution: automatic check for duplicates
A blade is powered on and its address is moved to a different slot
Solution: restrict power state when applying a new slot address configuration
Partial failure during apply
Solution: use the following procedure to apply a new configuration
Disable any active bofm addresses
Apply new addresses
Do not apply to a powered on blade

19. BOFM Advantages Virtualizes the adapter addresses
Reduces costs for replacing blades
Enables pre-configuration
Supports failover automation

20. Questions?