PAN Manager Technical Overview

PAN Manager Technical Overview

For BladeFrame® BF400 S2 and BladeFrame® BF200

Document Number 430-SB0070

August 2008

PM5.2_BF

CopyrightCopyright © 2007 Egenera, Inc. All rights reserved.

This document, and the product described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of this document is furnished for information purposes only and is subject to change without notice.

Egenera, Egenera stylized logos, BladeFrame, BladeLatch, BladeMate, BladePlane, cBlade, Control Blade, PAN Manager, pBlade, Processing Blade, sBlade, and Switch Blade are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Egenera, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

PRIMERGY is a registered trademark of Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

AMD, AMD Opteron, and AMD Athlon are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc..

EMC, CLARiiON, and Symmetrix are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation.

The IBM Developer Kit for Linux, Java 2 Technology Edition contains software which is copyright IBM Corporation, Sun Microsystems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., and X Consortium.

Intel and Itanium are registered trademarks and Xeon is a trademark of the Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, and the Java logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The virtual VGA console uses Microsoft Terminal Services Advanced Client (TSAC), which is a copyright of Microsoft Corporation.

MindTerm is copyright AppGate AB.

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Oracle9i is a trademark of Oracle Corporation.

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VMware, Virtual SMP, and VMotion are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc.

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All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Printed in the United States of America.

Egenera, Inc., 165 Forest Street, Marlboro, Massachusetts 01752.

Contents

Preface

Customer Support .................................................................................................... viii

Document Conventions ........................................................................................... viii

Chapter 1: PAN Architecture

PAN Physical Components ..................................................................................... 1-2Platform Components ....................................................................................... 1-2pBlade Features ................................................................................................ 1-3cBlade Features ................................................................................................ 1-4sBlade Features................................................................................................. 1-5PAN Manager Software ................................................................................... 1-5

Logical and Virtual Components ............................................................................ 1-6

PAN Server Architecture ......................................................................................... 1-8Benefits of pServers ......................................................................................... 1-8Remote pBlade I/O ........................................................................................... 1-9Logical Components of pServers ..................................................................... 1-9

PAN Network Architecture ................................................................................... 1-11Benefits of Logical Network Connections ..................................................... 1-11Logical Network Components........................................................................ 1-12

LPAN Architecture ................................................................................................ 1-14LPANs ............................................................................................................ 1-14Resources........................................................................................................ 1-14Blade Pools ..................................................................................................... 1-15

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PAN Size Guidelines ............................................................................................. 1-16

Chapter 2: PAN Manager Software

User Interfaces ......................................................................................................... 2-2Graphical User Interface................................................................................... 2-2Command-Line Interface.................................................................................. 2-4PAN Manager Web Service ............................................................................. 2-4Windows pServer Console ............................................................................... 2-5

Software Versions ................................................................................................... 2-6

Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications .......................................... 2-8PAN Manager System Event Monitoring......................................................... 2-8SNMP Support ................................................................................................. 2-9Storage Area Network I/O Monitoring............................................................. 2-9Application Health Monitoring ...................................................................... 2-10Third-Party System Management Tools......................................................... 2-10

Failover .................................................................................................................. 2-10PAN Manager Failover................................................................................... 2-10Control Blade Failover ................................................................................... 2-11

Security Domains and Administrative Roles ........................................................ 2-11Security Domains ........................................................................................... 2-11Administrative Roles and Permissions........................................................... 2-12

Disaster Recovery .................................................................................................. 2-13

Multipath Support .................................................................................................. 2-16

Chapter 3: PAN Processing Resources

Creating LPANs ...................................................................................................... 3-2LPAN Resources .............................................................................................. 3-3Maintenance LPAN .......................................................................................... 3-5

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Contents

Creating Pools ......................................................................................................... 3-5

Building pServers .................................................................................................... 3-6

Chapter 4: PAN Networking Resources

Network and Application Considerations ............................................................... 4-3

Core Components .................................................................................................... 4-4

Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains ........................................................... 4-5

Internetworking ....................................................................................................... 4-6

Network Operation .................................................................................................. 4-7

Chapter 5: High-Availability Applications

Configuring High-Availability Applications ........................................................... 5-2

Using Application Resources .................................................................................. 5-3

Chapter 6: Software Releases

Types of Software Releases .................................................................................... 6-2cBlade Software................................................................................................ 6-3pBlade Software ............................................................................................... 6-3Intelligent Platform Management System........................................................ 6-5

Operating System Versions ..................................................................................... 6-6Supported Operating Systems .......................................................................... 6-6Guest Operating Systems ................................................................................. 6-7

Installation Options ................................................................................................. 6-8cBlade Software Installation............................................................................. 6-8pServer Software Installation .......................................................................... 6-8

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Hypervisor and Guest Installation .................................................................... 6-9Firmware Updates ............................................................................................ 6-9

Appendix A: BladeFrame Hardware Configuration

Hardware Components ........................................................................................... A-2

System Chassis ....................................................................................................... A-2System Chassis Specifications ........................................................................ A-4

BladePlane .............................................................................................................. A-5

Control Blades ........................................................................................................ A-6cBlade Configurations ..................................................................................... A-7cBlade Physical Specifications........................................................................ A-8

Switch Blades ...................................................................................................... A-10sBlade Physical Specifications ...................................................................... A-10cBlade Switches............................................................................................. A-11

Processing Blades ................................................................................................. A-11pBlade Physical Specifications...................................................................... A-12Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators ........................................................ A-12

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators ............................................................... A-13

Power .................................................................................................................... A-14Basic and Redundant Power Input Modules ................................................. A-14Power Domains ............................................................................................. A-15Power Failure................................................................................................. A-16Power Specifications ..................................................................................... A-18

Cabling Requirements .......................................................................................... A-18

For More Information ........................................................................................... A-20

Index

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Preface

Welcome to PAN Manager PM5.2_BF. PAN Manager Technical Overview is part of the PAN Manager documentation set. Its purpose is to describe the benefits and features of the Processing Area Network (PAN) architecture, PAN Manager software, and hardware platform.

Audience — PAN Manager Technical Overview is for PAN Administrators and LPAN Administrators.

Topics — Read this book to learn about the following:

• PAN architecture

• PAN Manager features

• PAN processing resources and networking resources

• High Availability (HA) applications

• Software releases

• Hardware platform components

Documentation Set — To learn about the other documents available in the PAN Manager documentation set, see Chapter 2, “Document List,” of PAN Manager Feature Summary.

Platform-Specific Product Features — To learn about the PAN Manager features available in the current release, see Chapter 3, “Feature List,” of PAN Manager Feature Summary.

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../featsum/feature_doc_list.html

../featsum/feature_doc_list.html

../featsum/featlist.html

../featsum/featlist.html


Customer Support

If you require customer support regarding this product, use the following contact information.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support

Document Conventions

Internet http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support

Telephone See the Help Desk information at http://manuals.fujitsu-siemens.com/primergyservers.html under General Information, Warranty and Support.

Convention Description

> Directory-level delimiter used to navigate the left pane of the PAN Manager GUI.

Example: Resources > Ethernet Connections

Sans serif italics Variable text, such as a path, a filename, or an LPAN name.

Example: lpan -c lpanname

Sans serif Text that must be typed as shown.

Example: Type root at the login prompt.

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Preface

Bold The name of a field or window element appearing in a GUI. It also highlights default values in PAN Manager man pages.

Example: In the Users page...

Italics Text that is emphasized.

Example: Do not connect the power.

[text] Text that is optional to a command.

{text} A set of choices, one of which is required.

| Separation of mutually exclusive choices in syntax lines.

Example: lpan [-aD | -rD]{switch | SCSI_ID} lpanname

Note Information of importance or that may not fit in main text.

Caution Failure to heed a caution could result in loss of data.

Warning — Failure to heed a warning could result in physical harm to the user or the hardware.

Convention Description

!

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Chapter 1PAN Architecture

This chapter introduces you to the benefits and components of the Fujitsu Siemens Computers Processing Area Network (PAN) architecture. A PAN is the processing equivalent of a storage area network (SAN), and provides the same proven economic benefits of common resources, modular deployment, and centralized management.

PAN Manager software enables administrators to increase, decrease, and reallocate processing resources through software, to accommodate varying demands on existing and new applications. PAN Manager does this by integrating processing, networking, management, and high-availability functionality that has traditionally been dispersed across server hardware, operating systems, and data networks.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• PAN Physical Components

• Logical and Virtual Components

• PAN Server Architecture

• PAN Network Architecture

• LPAN Architecture

• PAN Size Guidelines

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PAN Physical Components

The PAN architecture applies to a variety of hardware platforms, including [company name of HW vendor] hardware platforms as well as other manufacturers. This section defines the physical components of a PAN.

For hardware requirements and specifications, see Appendix A, “Hardware Configuration.” For the most up-to-date requirements, configurations, and specifications, see (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support) or contact Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support.

Platform Components

A PAN organizes processing resources in units called platforms. A platform consists of the following physical components:

• A set of diskless Processing Blades (pBlades), which provide the modular processing power for applications and services. The number of pBlades varies with the specific platform.

• A pair of redundant Control Blades (cBlades), which provide provide management and control functions, plus all external I/O for the platform.

• A pair of redundant Switch Blades (sBlades), which manage the packet switching among the pBlades and cBlades. (Switch Blades might be Switch Cards in some products.)

• A fabric, which provides a high-speed internal network to connect all of the physical components.

The fabric provides out-of-band (OOB) management of the chassis.

The combination of these elements creates a pool of processors that administrators can configure and deploy through software and without physical intervention.

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HWConfig.html

HWConfig.html

PAN Architecture

The following figure shows how the basic PAN elements map to your hardware platform.

Figure 1.1 BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 Platforms with PAN Elements

pBlade Features The pBlades provide the processing power for applications. The diskless pBlades function like conventional servers after they are configured with storage and network connections. The pBlades contain only processors and memory, and require no direct external connections.

The pBlades use a remote I/O architecture that connects them to network and storage resources external to the platform. All pBlade network and disk I/O flows through the high-speed fabric to the Ethernet Network Interface Cards (NICs) and host bus adapters (HBAs) on the cBlades, which interface with the IP network and external storage. The pBlades can communicate among themselves and with the cBlades at speeds greater than 1 Gbps.

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The pBlades run standard off-the-shelf versions of Linux, Windows, and Solaris operating systems to host your applications. See Chapter 6, “Software Releases” for a list of currently-supported operating systems.

Because pBlades have no peripherals or console ports, administrators work remotely through Telnet, SSH clients, or the PAN Manager graphical user interface (GUI). Remote management includes powering, booting, and shutting down the pBlades.

cBlade Features The cBlades provide a centralized server to manage pBlade I/O and host management software. The cBlades manage the following types of pBlade I/O:

• Network and storage I/O

The cBlades also contain the following:

• Ethernet ports

• HBA ports

• DVD-ROM drives

A platform provides redundant cBlades for inherent high-availability and the load balancing of inbound and outbound traffic. In a failover scenario, the platform can operate with only one cBlade. In a normal platform configuration, PAN Manager recognizes one cBlade as the master, while the other cBlade (the slave) remains available for failover.

Each cBlade includes the following connections:

• 1GigE connections to the premises network (for use by pBlade applications)

• Fibre Channel connections (2 Gbps) to the SAN network (for use by pBlade applications)

• 1GigE connections to the secure management network (for use by PAN Manager)

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PAN Architecture

• Internal 1GigE connections to each sBlade (for use by the fabric and virtualization extensions)

The cBlades run the Red Hat operating system and the PAN Manager software. The purpose of the cBlades is strictly to manage the PAN; you should not install any customer applications there. For more information about the cBlade operating system software, see Chapter 6, “Software Releases”.

sBlade Features The sBlades provide the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades. A platform includes two sBlades that provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. (In some products, sBlades may be implemented as separate switch cards or even switch cards built into the cBlades.) The sBlade serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to dynamically create connections among pBlades.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant fabric connections to the sBlades. If an sBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific sBlade, the sending blade will then send all traffic to the other sBlade. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant sBlades load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

PAN Manager Software

You configure and manage the platforms and other PAN components with PAN Manager, system management software. PAN Manager provides a single control point for allocating, configuring, and monitoring both physical and logical resources. PAN Manager includes both a command-line interface (CLI) and a browser-based GUI.

PAN Manager provides the following features:

• Roles-based user privileges

• Hardware and network configuration and management

• Hardware resource partitioning

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• The ability to configure and manage applications and high-availability

• Load-balancing configuration and management

• Reconfiguration and expansion of running servers

• Remote monitoring and server management

• Integration with leading enterprise management consoles

Note:

Certain PAN Manager features have operating system or hardware dependencies and may not be available on all pBlade configurations.

For more information about PAN Manager features, see Chapter 2, “PAN Manager Software”.

Logical and Virtual Components

The PAN architecture removes the physical scaling and provisioning restraints of networking physical servers, and replaces them with more configurable logical equivalents or virtualized objects. The logical connections provide administrators with the flexibility to create, change, and remove I/O communication channels in response to changing business conditions.

Internally, PAN Manager implements virtualized objects through a logical model. Although the logical model is generally invisible to users, you can see changes and improvements that have been made to the logical model as new or improved features in the PAN Manager software.

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PAN Architecture

The PAN architecture uses virtual and logical components to implement features typically found in hardware. These components allow administrators to configure hardware in a familiar environment. Table 1.1 lists the conventional components and their virtual (logical) counterparts.

Table 1.1 Conventional and Virtual Components

Conventional Component PAN Virtual or Logical Component

Server pServer

Processor Virtual Blade (vBlade)

Network Interface Controller (NIC)

Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interface

Switch Virtual Switch (vSwitch)

Storage Disks and tapes

Media drive Virtual CD (VCD)

Boot device Egenera Virtualized Boot Services (EVBS)

Administrative Domain PAN and Logical PAN (LPAN) security domains

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PAN Server Architecture

This section outlines the benefits of provisioning pServers instead of conventional servers and the features of pServers.

Benefits of pServers

A pServer is a logical server that possesses all the resources of a conventional server, but is not tied to a specific pBlade. A pServer consists of the following components:

• Logical or virtual processing resource

• Virtual network connections

• Networked disk storage

A conventional server has these components in a single box, but a pServer consists of distributed virtual components that provide the same features.

By building customized pServers, administrators can more closely align processing power with their applications’ needs. The pServers allow administrators to isolate and define the appropriate amount of processing power to apply to an application, and then add the storage and network resources to complete the pServer.

Processing power can be allocated in increments of pBlades or Virtual Blades (vBlades). A vBlade is a software partition of a pBlade that serves as an independent logical processing resource. Administrators can use vBlades for applications that need smaller processing resources than a full pBlade. An added benefit for pServers running on vBlades is live migration from one vBlade to another vBlade.

Because a pServer is configured and implemented through software, administrators can build pServers and their network connections through PAN Manager without any physical labor. After they are implemented, pServers remain flexible and

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PAN Architecture

reconfigurable. Administrators can remotely monitor and control pServers through a Telnet or SSH session, or through the browser-based GUI.

Remote pBlade I/O

The PAN architecture implements the I/O of the pBlades using a remote I/O connection that provides data storage, LAN, and inter-node access for the pServers. The term remote I/O refers to the fact that pServers have no local hard disk or other local device to process I/O and depend on cBlade HBAs for storage connections. The remote I/O channels carry data to and from pBlades through the cBlade storage interfaces. Kernel-level features load balance the storage connections between the two cBlades and between storage connections on the same cBlade. These high-concurrency I/O channels work with any Fibre Channel-based (FCP or FCP-2) storage system.

Logical Components of pServers

In a PAN, administrators manage servers with the following logical components:

• pServer — The aggregate of a processing resource (pBlade or vBlade), disk, and tape resources, and internal and external network connections. The pServers have hardware, PAN Manager software, and cBlade dependencies.

• Logical disks — Disk arrays located on a SAN or Network Attached Storage (NAS), or Fibre Channel storage devices directly attached to the cBlades. The term disks in PAN Manager represents the logical or physical devices that reside on external arrays.

• Logical tapes — Tape drives located on a SAN. The term tapes in PAN Manager represents the tape drives that reside on external storage devices.

Note: Logical tapes are not supported on all pServer releases. Please see PAN Manager Release Notes for information on pServers that support logical tapes.

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• Virtual CD-ROM (VCD) — A Virtual CD-ROM drive created for each pServer. The VCD accesses ISO images registered with the PAN. For more information about VCDs, see “Maintenance LPAN” on page 3-5.

• vBlades — Software partitions of a pBlade that serve as independent logical processing resources. Administrators create and use vBlades for applications that need less processing resources than a full pBlade. A vBlade inherits the CPU architecture of its pBlade.

• Boot image — A boot program that emulates CD, SAN disk, and/or Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) boot devices.

Figure 1.2 shows how the logical and virtual resources used by a pServer map to the physical components of the platform and SAN network.

Figure 1.2 pServer Components

VirtualResource

PlatformpBlade 1

cBlade 1

LogicalResource

Key:

pBlade n

NICs

pServer 1

pServer n

SAN

SAN Switches

Processing

Disk

Processing

Network

NetworkDisk

HBAs

Switches

Premises Network

vBlade 1

LUNs Tapes

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PAN Architecture

For more information on pServers and their related components, see “Building pServers” on page 3-6.

PAN Network Architecture

This section describes the benefits of networking pServers with virtual network components and the components of the PAN network architecture.

Benefits of Logical Network Connections

The PAN architecture allows administrators to network pServers and create broadcast domains without the hardware and physical restrictions of conventional networks. From an administrative perspective, the broadcast domains operate exactly the same as conventional broadcast domains, and connect to external networks seamlessly.

The core networking components of the PAN are the vEths and vSwitches. The vEths provide pServers with all the features of a physical NIC. The vSwitches are software switches, which connect the pServers and link the vSwitches’ broadcast domain to external networks. Together, the components create secure, private, and redundant communication channels to other pServers and external networks.

The PAN network architecture provides administrators with the following benefits:

• Increased actual in-rack densities — The PAN architecture removes many of the cabling issues that keep administrators from reaching vendor-advertised densities.

• Cable and hardware-free networks — Administrators can network pServers without cables and other network hardware.

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• Virtually unlimited communication channels — Server-to-server connections are virtually unlimited for practical use, and scale into the thousands.

• One hundred percent network redundancy with low-latency and connection failover — PAN Manager software creates network connections and virtual components in redundant pairs. The connection pairs can load balance traffic for further efficiencies.

• Gigabit Ethernet trunking — Administrators can create multiple private and secure network channels over a shared Gigabit network connection using Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifiers (that is, VLAN IDs).

Logical Network Components

In a PAN, administrators manage network connections with the following logical and virtual components:

• vEths — Ethernet connections implemented through PAN Manager. Administrators create and use vEths to provide the same features found in an Ethernet NIC. Administrators connect pServer vEths to vSwitches using the PAN Manager CLI or GUI to create network connections.

• vSwitches — Switches implemented in software that function in a manner similar to an Ethernet switch and that provide connectivity between pServers and broadcast domains. The vSwitches provide connections to Local Area Networks (LANs) that are internal or external (an uplink) to the PAN.

• Redundant Ethernet Interfaces (rEths) — Two physical Ethernet connections with the ability to load balance incoming and outgoing network traffic and failover between NICs. These connections are configured on the following:

• Separate cBlades

The vSwitches use an uplink to a rEth to send network traffic off the platform. All vSwitches share a maximum of two NICs on the one blade, and each NIC has a twin NIC on the other blade.

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PAN Architecture

PAN Manager supports trunking to maximize the use of NICs. Using Virtual LANs (VLANs) in uplinks to rEths allows administrators to send network traffic from multiple vSwitches over a single Gigabit NIC.

Figure 1.3 shows the relationships between the logical and virtual networking components in a PAN. On some platforms, the NICs reside on the sBlades instead of the cBlades.

Figure 1.3 Relationships Between Network Components

For more information on network components, see Chapter 4, “PAN Networking Resources”.

.

.

.. . .

PlatformpBlade1

cBlade1

cBlade2

rEth2rEth1

pBladen

vEth1

vEthn

vEth1vEthn

NIC1NIC2NIC3NIC4

VirtualResource

LogicalResource

Key:

pServer 1

pServer nvSwitch n

vSwitch 1

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LPAN Architecture

This section describes the benefits of establishing multiple LPANs in a PAN and the components of LPANs.

LPANs Administrators can establish multiple LPANs in a single PAN to allocate physically distinct and secure resources to specific organizations within an enterprise. LPANs consist of isolated groups of PAN and external hardware resources. Administrators with PAN Administrator permissions (similar to root) can allocate these resources to a business entity. LPAN resources are in most cases private to a specific LPAN although some LPAN resources can be shared. For more information on LPANs, see “Creating LPANs” on page 3-2.

Resources PAN Manager uses the term resources to represent components associated with LPANs or applications. LPAN resources can include the following:

• pBlades

• vBlade partitions that belong to the pBlades

• Data storage

• vSwitches

• cBlade DVD-ROM drives

• Other media devices

Application resources can include the following:

• Executable resources

• Network resources

• Disk resources

• Tape resources

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PAN Architecture

• Network file system resources

• Application health monitors

• Failover policies

Blade Pools PAN Manager allows administrators to create pools of pBlades or vBlades that have similar architecture and performance, and to associate pServers with the pools instead of assigning specific blades to pServers. Administrators can designate local pools as the primary or failover blades for pServers. Local pools contain blades that can be allocated to pServers in a specific LPAN. Global pools contain blades that can be allocated to pServers in more than one LPAN.

Pools simplify the management of servers within an LPAN and allow administrators to more closely match their failover needs with processing resources. For instance, administrators can assign a local pool of two failover pBlades to handle pBlade failover for four pServers within an LPAN, rather than assign each pServer its own failover pBlade. In addition, a administrator can establish a local or global pool of spare pBlades to provide for incremental capacity or hardware failover. Figure 1.4 shows two LPANs, each with a local pool of blades for running pServers. The LPANs share a global pool for incremental capacity and failover. For more information on blade pools, see “Creating Pools” on page 3-5.

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Figure 1.4 LPANs with Local and Global Pools

PAN Size Guidelines

Table 1.2 outlines the maximum numbers of logical, virtual, and physical components that can be defined in a PAN and LPAN. Depending on the component, either the PAN Manager software or the virtualization extensions enforce the maximum number.

Table 1.2 Maximum Components per PAN and LPAN

LPANS

Sales

MarketingProdMktg

SalesFinance

PR

pServersPlatformpBlade 1

pBlade n

pBlade 2pBlade 3pBlade 4pBlade 5pBlade 6

.

.

.

pBlade 7pBlade 8pBlade 9

Global Pool

Local Pools

Failover

Sales

Mktg

Logical, Virtual, or Physical Component

Maximum Per PAN Maximum Per LPAN

Maximum Per pServer

Maximum Per pBlade

LPAN 72 — — —

pServer 600 144 — —

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PAN Architecture

vBlades — — — 32

Local Pool — 20 — —

Global Pool 20 — — —

Total Pools (Global + Local)

200 — — —

vSwitch 4096 (BladeFrame BF400 S2)

— — —

vEth — — 31 —

Total SCSI Devices (Disks + Tapes)

For PAN Manager Releases lower than 4.0.1.5: 688

For PAN Manager Releases 4.0.1.5 through 5.1.n: 2000

For PAN Manager Releases 5.2 and higher: 2048

— — —

Device Mappings (Disks + Tapes + Media Drives + VCDs)

— — 256 —

Logical, Virtual, or Physical Component

Maximum Per PAN Maximum Per LPAN

Maximum Per pServer

Maximum Per pBlade

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Chapter 2PAN Manager Software

PAN Manager software provides hardware and application configuration and management for the PAN, as well as providing administrative security. This chapter describes the user interfaces and features of PAN Manager software, and provides pointers to more specific information about PAN Manager features. Specifically, the chapter discusses the following topics:

• User Interfaces

• Software Versions

• Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications

• Failover

• Security Domains and Administrative Roles

• Disaster Recovery

• Multipath Support

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User Interfaces

PAN Manager offers administrators the option of using a browser-based GUI or a CLI for managing and monitoring all PAN operations. Administrators can perform tasks or monitor operations through either interface, and use the interfaces simultaneously. Administrators can access the cBlades and pServers through interfaces that support a Telnet or SSH session, and whose host has a valid network connection to the cBlade.

PAN Manager also supports the PAN Manager Web Service: an application programming interface (API) that allows users to have remote programmatic access to PAN Manager.

Graphical User Interface

PAN Manager provides administrators a browser-based graphical user interface that lets them configure and monitor hardware and applications. The GUI, shown in Figure 2.1, provides an intuitive and consistent view of the PAN and its components, and a logical path through the configuration processes.

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Figure 2.1 PAN Manager Graphical User Interface

The display consists of the following HTML frame sets that present content and navigation aids:

• Main Frame — The main area of interaction for the user.

• Navigation tree — A hierarchical view of the objects and areas of the system.

• Tabs — Allows you to load various views into the Main Frame for the currently selected object or area (such as LPAN, pServer, pBlade, and so on). The Events tab presents the recent system events related to this object. Monitor shows detailed data of the object over time, such as disk/memory utilization, power usage, and so on. Configuration presents interfaces for changing the properties of the object. The Jump To drop-down lists all of the siblings of the current object, such as other pServers in a LPAN if you are currently viewing a pServer. By choosing an item in this list, you are forwarded to that object and the Main Frame reloads.

Navigation Tree Tabs Main Frame Control Panel Status Panel

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• Control Panel — Presents buttons to allow the user to change the state of the current object such as booting, starting, and shutting down.

• Status Panel — A brief summary of the state and configuration of the current object or area.

Command-Line Interface

To configure and manage the PAN, PAN Manager provides a rich set of commands. Administrators use the CLI by logging into a cBlade using a client, such as Telnet or SSH. See Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 PAN Manager Command-Line Interface (CLI)

For the complete list of PAN Manager commands, see PAN Manager Command Reference or type help at the command prompt. For information on writing scripts with CLI commands, see PAN Manager Scripting Guide.

PAN Manager Web Service

The PAN Manager Web Service is an application programming interface (API) that allows users with the proper login credentials to have remote programmatic access to PAN Manager. This means you can manage a PAN with the API, command line interface (CLI), or graphical user interface (GUI).

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The PAN Manager Web Service uses the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which is based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML), to communicate with your web service client. Because it uses SOAP, the PAN Manager Web Service provides a language-agnostic programming interface for managing the PAN. You can use any programming language that supports web services, such as Java or .NET (C#), to implement your web service client programs.

The PAN Manager Web Service provides access to most PAN Manager features. For details, refer to the PAN Manager Web Service Programmers Guide.

Windows pServer Console

Administrators running Windows operating systems on their pServers have the option of using a virtual VGA console, as shown in Figure 2.3. This feature uses an ActiveX control and requires you to access the PAN Manager GUI using the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer. Access to this feature is disabled for all other browsers.

Figure 2.3 Virtual VGA Console (Windows Only)

ps3

10.10.10.5 – ps3 / windohs

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Software Versions

PAN Manager provides administrators with a CLI command and an appropriate mechanism in the GUI to display version information for software installed on cBlades and pServers. This information is useful to Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support when attempting to resolve customer questions.

Using PAN Manager, administrators can obtain from the cBlades and pServers version information about the following:

• Installation CD

• Linux kernel running on the cBlades

• Linux or Windows operating systems running on the pServer

• PAN Agent (PAN Manager)

• RPMs

Administrators can also obtain a complete software revision history related to PAN Manager and kernel-related software running on cBlades and pServers. In addition, PAN Manager displays a list of all software upgrades performed on cBlades and pServers since the initial installation.

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Certain PAN Manager features are operating system-dependent. Operating System dependencies are clearly marked in the PAN Manager GUI with the clickable icon and resulting message box shown in Figure 2.4:

Figure 2.4 Operating System Dependency Icons and Messages

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Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications

Administrators can use PAN Manager and other utilities to monitor all major components of the PAN.

PAN Manager System Event Monitoring

PAN Manager lets administrators manage the events for all major components in the system. PAN Manager returns event messages as human-readable strings that define the event, and in some cases the component status. See Figure 2.5

Figure 2.5 PAN Manager GUI Events Tab

Components that generate events include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Platforms

• PIM-R power sources (BladeFrame BF400 S2)

• All blades

• pServers

• Users

• Applications

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For a complete description of components, events, and the report content, as well as information about configuring the appropriate actions for each event, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

SNMP Support PAN Manager supports SNMP Versions 1 and 2c, and includes SNMP agents to provide monitor and control access relative to their specific security domains. PAN Manager supports the following SNMP agents:

• SNMP PAN agent — Provides monitor and control access to a PAN.

• SNMP LPAN agent — Provides monitor and control access to an LPAN. Each LPAN has its own LPAN agent.

Storage Area Network I/O Monitoring

PAN Manager uses the MON resource monitoring system to monitor the I/O between the cBlade and the SAN to which it is attached. PAN Manager provides SAN I/O performance statistics for the cBlade and specific HBAs on the cBlade. Statistics can apply to all configured LUNs, sets of LUNs, or individual LUNs.

The pathctl software utility on the cBlades displays the current multipath I/O and HBA configurations, disables a cBlade HBA, or enables a previously disabled cBlade HBA. For more information about pathctl and other SAN utilities, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.

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Application Health Monitoring

PAN Manager uses the MON resource monitoring system to monitor the health of applications under PAN Manager control.

Third-Party System Management Tools

PAN Manager supports the Tivoli Management Framework through an application programming interface (API) for managing the platform and hosted applications. PAN Manager also supports HP OpenView as a third-party system management tool.

Failover

PAN Manager software manages all aspects of failover. This section discusses PAN Manager failover, cBlade failover, and redundancy management.

PAN Manager Failover

PAN Manager provides inherent high-availability through a second instance of the PAN Manager software running on the second cBlade. PAN Manager runs in a master/slave relationship. The instance of PAN Manager that starts first becomes the PAN master and performs all management functions described in this and other chapters. The PAN slave has the responsibility to assume the master’s responsibilities in case of failure.

In a PAN Manager failover sequence, all active PAN Agent client sessions fail, but the PAN slave assumes all active states. (PAN Manager failover does not impact I/O. All pServer I/O operations still complete or recover.) PAN Manager operations in progress at the time that the controlling instance failed might complete, might not complete, or might be left partially complete. Administrators need to determine which operations were left in an incomplete state, and then continue to recover those operations.

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If any application’s high-availability operation (starting, stopping, moving, or failing over an application) has started, PAN Manager attempts to complete the operation.

Control Blade Failover

The PAN provides failover and migration of PAN Manager functionality from the master cBlade to the slave cBlade, if an event causes the master cBlade to fail. The cBlade and PAN Manager failover sequence is an automated event. Administrators do not need to manually migrate or start PAN Manager on the slave cBlade. For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide. For application failover, see Chapter 5, “High-Availability Applications”.

Security Domains and Administrative Roles

PAN Manager uses security domains and administrative roles to manage the PAN. Together they allow administrators to allocate private and secure resources, and restrict access to unauthorized users.

Security Domains

PAN Manager supports and enforces security domains, which define strict boundaries and ownership of resources. The domains also include users and access permissions, and define the administrative topology of the system. PAN Manager defines the following security domains:

• PAN Domain — All objects and administrative permissions available to the platform. This includes resources that are not platform components, such as disks.

• LPAN Domain — The objects (private and shared) and administrative roles in a specific LPAN. LPANs are a subset of the PAN domain and are created with PAN-level permissions. You can partition a PAN into multiple LPANs.

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Objects within domains can remain private to that domain or shared among other domains. Each object belongs to at least one domain.

Administrative Roles and Permissions

PAN Manager software provides distinct and predefined administrative roles for each security domain. Administrators cannot alter the roles or their included permissions in any way. Each role comes with one or more permission types. The following are the roles and their permissions:

• Administrator role — Consists of Configuration, Control, and Monitor permissions

• Operator role — Consists of Control and Monitor permissions

• Monitor role — Consists of Monitor permissions

Permissions further define the following allowable actions:

• Configuration — Allows adding, removing, and configuring specific resources for operating and configuring pServers. Configuration permissions include Monitor and Control permissions; these are the highest level of permissions.

• Control — Allows administrators to control previously configured objects. For example, administrators can boot or stop pServers. Control permissions include Monitor permissions.

• Monitor — Allows the monitoring of objects in the system for health, operation status, and events.

PAN Manager provides each security domain with a full set of roles and permissions. The following table lists the administrative roles associated with each domain.

Table 2.1 Security Domains and Administrative Roles

Domain Administrative Role

PAN PAN Administrator

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Users assigned the PAN Administrator role have root-like permissions that allow them to set up the PAN, create LPANs, and assign resources to LPANs.

Resource Configuration Collector

PAN Manager provides a chargeback feature called Resource Configuration Collector (RCC), which is turned on by default. This feature records pServer events (such as boot, reboot, and shutdown) and pServer configuration data in an XML log file so that administrators can track PAN usage.

Note: RCC logs events only when PAN Manager is running. Even when enabled, RCC does not log events when PAN Manager is disabled, such as during software upgrades.

Disaster Recovery

PAN Manager provides features that allow administrators to implement disaster recovery (DR) strategies for the PAN. Generically defined, disaster recovery encapsulates the policies and procedures designed to return some entity to an acceptable condition. For information about how to perform PAN disaster recovery-related tasks, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

The following list provides some details for disaster recovery:

LPAN LPAN Administrator

LPAN Operator

LPAN Monitor

Domain Administrative Role

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• PAN Archives — Files that contains configuration information about a specific PAN. PAN Administrators can back up and export PAN archives on a periodic schedule to a cBlade or to an external SAN volume.

The following are some important uses for PAN archives:

• Replace lost or corrupted PAN configurations

• Restore a destroyed or incapacitated cBlade onto a cBlade

• Retarget PAN configurations on day/night schedule

• Operations Associated with PAN Archives — PAN Administrators can perform a variety of operations on a PAN archive:

• Importing a PAN Archive — Import a previously saved PAN archive into the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Exporting a PAN Archive — Export a previously saved or imported PAN archive to an external location by specifying the full path to the location where the PAN archive should reside.

• Saving a PAN Configuration — Save a currently running PAN configuration as a PAN archive. This operation is useful to PAN Administrators who want to import or export the PAN archive at a later time.

• Scheduling Backups of a PAN Configuration — Schedule backups of a PAN configuration to a PAN archive. PAN Administrators can set up a time period to backup and export the PAN archive to a specific disk attached to a SAN or NAS.

• Validating a PAN Archive — Validate the PAN archive after the import operation completes. This operation ensures that the imported archive is structurally correct and compatible with the current resources (pBlades, rEths, and disks).

• Swapping a PAN Archive — Swap a specified PAN archive with the currently running PAN configuration.

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• Renaming a PAN Archive — Renaming a PAN archive ensures that the new name does not conflict with the names of any existing PAN archives.

• Applying a Resource Map to a PAN Archive (Optional) — A resource map is an XML file that defines the mapping of resources from a PAN archive to the currently running PAN configuration. The resource map contains the following resources:

– pBlades

– Disks and tapes

– Eths

• Merging the Current PAN Configuration with a PAN Archive — Merge the information in the current PAN configuration with the information in a PAN archive. This information includes management network addresses, registered boot images, registered root disk images, and other high-level information.

• Deleting a PAN Archive — Delete a saved or imported PAN archive. After deleting a PAN archive, it no longer appears in the list of archives.

• Listing PAN Archives — List (using the CLI) one or all saved or imported PAN archives that reside in the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Viewing a PAN Archive — View (using the GUI) a specific saved or imported PAN archive that resides in the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Image Archives— Since executable images consume significant disk space, they are not included in DR archives. Administrators can export and import image archives containing boot, root, media, and firmware images. Image archives are distinct from DR archives and can be stored on the cBlade disk, a PAN disk, a raw SAN disk.

For more information about these operations, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

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Multipath Support

PAN Manager can map multiple paths to the disks allocated to a pServer using the Fujitsu Siemens Computers multipath driver. For more information, see the support web site (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support) for the specific pServer Guide, which describes multipath driver support.

Note: Multiple paths are not supported for tapes. Tapes are restricted to a single path.

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Chapter 3PAN Processing

Resources

The distributed components of the PAN allow administrators to structure the hardware, logical components, and additional external resources into secure and separate entities called LPANs. LPANs also provide the means for administrators to share a single PAN among multiple business entities. This chapter discusses the following topics related to configuring hardware resources:

• Creating LPANs

• Creating Pools

• Building pServers

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Creating LPANs

LPANs include resources and pServers that remain logically separate from the other resources of the PAN. Most LPAN resources are exclusive to an LPAN; however, some resources might be shared by pServers in other LPANs:

• DVD-ROM drives

• vSwitches

• Failover blades

The option of shared resources allows administrators access to system-wide resources and allows pServers to participate in larger networks that span LPANs.

Only PAN Administrators can create resources and allocate them to LPANs. The PAN Manager software allows administrators to check for available resources and allocate them to an LPAN.

Note: The term administrator, as used in this chapter, assumes the appropriate level of permissions. Not all administrators can allocate, configure, or manage LPAN resources.

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PAN Processing Resources

LPAN Resources LPAN resources include the following:

• pBlades — Processing units that provide the processing power and memory for pServers.

• vBlades — You can think of a vBlade (virtual blade) as a partition of a pBlade that uses a subset of the pBlade’s processors and memory to establish a new, independent processing resource.

vBlades include the following components:

• Hypervisor — Allows multiple guest operating systems, which can include different operating systems or multiple instances of the same operating system, to share one or more hardware processors.

• Host operating system — Used by the hypervisor to manage the guest operating systems running on the vBlade.

• Guest pServers — Provides the same services to applications as a traditional pServer running on a pBlade, except that it runs on the hypervisor and a vBlade.

For more information about vBlades and their components, see Using vBlades.

• Local blade pools — Groups of pBlades or vBlades with similar architecture and performance that can be allocated as primary or failover blades for pServers in the LPAN.

• Disk storage — Data storage that typically consists of external hard disk space on a SAN, NAS, or a directly attached device.

PAN Manager provides SCSI Reservation capability that supports reserve/release reservations within one platform, for Veritas or Microsoft Cluster Servers.

• Tape storage — Data storage that consists of external tape devices on a SAN.

• vSwitches — Software switches that provide the same functionality as hardware switches.

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• DVD-ROM drives — DVD-ROM drives on the cBlades are automatically allocated to each pServer running on a physical pBlade, although access is ultimately controlled by the PAN Administrator.

• Virtual CD (VCD) drives — A logical device that functions like a physical CD-ROM drive. Media used for insertion into VCD drives is stored in ISO image files registered with the PAN. pServers use the VCD to access ISO images registered with the PAN.

Note: ISO images registered with the PAN are visible and available to any pServer in the entire PAN.

Table 3.1 lists resources and their major properties. Administrators can configure some of these properties and their attributes through the PAN Manager CLI or GUI.

Table 3.1 Resource Properties

Resource Properties

pBlades Slot numberNumber of CPUsProcessor speedMemory sizepServer assignment

Local pools Number of allocated bladesNumber of available bladesLink to global poolList of allocated pServersList of allocated blades

Disk and tape storage

Target or SCSI IDLUNManufacturerModelRevision numberDisk capacity (disk storage only)Partitions (disk storage only)pServer assignment

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Maintenance LPAN

Each PAN contains a maintenance LPAN (.maint) for performing service operations on hardware, such as updating firmware on pBlades. The maintenance LPAN supports all the same resources and features of a standard LPAN, except for the following:

• Administrators cannot delete the maintenance LPAN.

• Administrators cannot move blades in or out of a maintenance LPAN but they can put blades in maintenance mode or remove them from maintenance mode.

For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Creating Pools

Administrators can create local or global pools of blades to act as both primary and failover blades for pServers. Administrators can add idle blades to and remove idle blades from blade pools at any time.

PAN Manager provides two kinds of pools:

• Local pools provide pBlade access only to pServers within a single LPAN.

vSwitches NameDescriptionUplinkVLAN connection

DVD-ROM drives

cBlade hostpServer assignments

Resource Properties

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• Global pools provide pBlade access to pServers in any LPAN that has been authorized to access that global pool.

Building pServers

Administrators can build pServers using LPAN resources and pools. This section describes the resources and configuration for pServers:

• pServer Resources and Configuration — A pServer is a logical server that contains all the resources of a conventional server. Specific pServer resources include the following:

• pBlades

• Disk and tape storage

• vEths

• Media drives, such as VCD and DVD-ROM

• Boot image

• Selecting pBlades — Administrators can select pBlades from the list of available pBlades in their LPAN.

• Selecting Blade Pools — When administrators select a local pool as the primary blade or failover blade for a pServer, PAN Manager assigns the pServer an available blade from the pool when the pServer boots or fails over.

• Selecting Disks and Tapes — Administrators can map two Fibre Channel connections (if the cBlade has two in its configuration) to the same storage device or network. If third-party SAN management software is running on the pServers, it recognizes the pServers as connected to the storage network also.

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Administrators can use Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Network File Systems (NFS) in conjunction with, or instead of, SAN disks.The pServer accesses the NFS just as a conventional server does.

For additional information about disks and tapes, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.

For additional information about using RAM disks, see the support web site (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support) for the white paper Using Ramdisks on the BladeFrame.

• Configuring Network Connections — Connections primarily involve connecting pServer vEths to vSwitches. For more information on configuring network connections, see Chapter 4, “PAN Networking Resources”.

• Configuring Failover pBlades and Pools — Administrators can configure failover by assigning a specific failover pBlade to a pServer or allowing PAN Manager to select a pBlade from a pool if the pServer primary pBlade fails.

• Configuring Boot Options — Administrators with LPANs that contain more than one pServer need to define the boot options that configure the timing, permissions, optional pServers, and failure-to-boot options.The following are the PAN Manager boot options:

• Optional pServers — Specifying a pServer as optional allows the other pServers in the LPAN to boot, even if the optional pServer(s) cannot.

• Boot images — Boot images that administrators can custom build. PAN Manager supports the following boot images:

– EVBS — Provides CD, SAN disk, and PXE boot for all types of pServers. Administrators can specify the order of boot devices as an argument.

– Non-EVBS — Provides RAM disk boot for pServer installation and TFTP boot for a specific pServer OS. Administrators can set image boot arguments as well as user-defined boot arguments.

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• Boot devices — EVBS boot image argument that specifies the list of devices (VCD, disk, vEth) from which a boot should be attempted (in sequential order).

• Boot arguments — Non-EVBS boot image arguments for the specific pServer and image.

• Hyperthreading Control — For pBlades that support it, you can enable or disable this control. Linux-based pServers can also control hyperthreading using boot arguments.

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Chapter 4PAN Networking

Resources

The PAN networking model emulates the functionality of a standard Layer 2 Ethernet network, while virtualizing much of the hardware, such as network ports and switches.

This allows PAN administrators to network pServers and create broadcast domains without the physical restrictions of conventional networks.

This chapter focuses on the PAN components shown in Figure 4.1. Refer to this figure as you read this chapter. This figure provides a high-level overview of PAN components.

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Figure 4.1 PAN Networking Overview

This chapter discusses the following topics related to PAN networking:

• Network and Application Considerations

• Core Components

• Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains

• Internetworking

• Network Operation

Premise Network

LPANS

Svc

SalesMarketing Service

ProdMktg Sales TrainingFinancePR

pServerswith

vEths

rEth A rEth B

cBlade 2 NICs

cBlade 1 NICs

vSwitchesWith

Uplinks

Secure Mgmt Network

vSwitch 2vSwitch 1

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PAN Networking Resources

Network and Application Considerations

This list outlines the network and application considerations when consolidating conventional servers with pServers:

• High-Speed Internal Network — The high-speed interconnect within the platform provides server-to-server transfer rates that in most cases exceed cabled networks. In addition, there are inherent security advantages in keeping network traffic within the platform, and cost advantages in sharing the network components that the platform provides.

• Network Security — The PAN architecture is designed to ensure the highest level of security, both within the PAN and with connections to external network Layer 2 and Layer 3 devices. The PAN provides the same degree of broadcast domain isolation that conventional Ethernet networks provide. Features in the Linux kernel on the cBlade also guarantee that a networking channel between pServer and cBlade is private and secure.

In addition, the management Ethernet ports are designed to be connected to a very secure management network, separate and isolated from the pServer Ethernet connections. The management ports are located on the following blades:

• cBlades

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Core Components

The PAN provides all common components or functionality of conventional networks, such as Ethernet controllers, switches, and the ability to create routers. PAN Manager makes component creation and configuration an easy process, and allows administrators to create these components and connections in larger numbers than found in conventional hardware. This list describes these components:

• vEths — The pServers have vEths that provide all of the functionality of a physical network port using software. The vEths provide all pServer send and receive capability for internal and external network traffic. A vEth’s unconventional form (software rather than hardware) remains transparent to other entities, such as IP traffic and applications.

• vSwitches — A vSwitch is the software equivalent of an unmanaged, physical Layer 2 Ethernet switch, which is similar to an intelligent hub. A vSwitch connects two or more pServers together in an LPAN and/or provides access to other LPANs or their external, physical network. The vSwitches ensure that traffic cannot pass between pServers without a connection to the same vSwitch.

Administrators can create and remove vSwitches dynamically as the connectivity requirements of the PAN change, and vSwitches will not run out of ports.

In a PAN, administrators can create up to the following number of vSwitches:

• 4096 vSwitches

An unlimited number of pServer vEths can be connected to the vSwitches.

• vSwitch Uplinks — Uplinks on vSwitches perform the same function as uplinks on conventional switches and connect vSwitches to external broadcast domains through the network ports in a rEth.

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PAN Manager provides complete failover support for vSwitches that have uplinks, by failing over the vSwitch and the network port in the rEth. The vSwitches that have uplinks also load balance traffic through the redundant instance.

• rEths — A redundant Ethernet connection is a software combination of two physical network ports that provides redundant external network connectivity for load balancing and failover capability. A rEth provides the same functionality for a vSwitch that an uplink port provides to a traditional switch. A rEth consists of:

• One physical network port on each cBlade

• Network Ports — The vSwitches use the network ports to send traffic off the platform. All vSwitches share a maximum of four ports:

• Two on each cBlade

Each network port has a twin port on the second blade. This is in addition to and separate from the management ports:

• 10/100 management ports found on each cBlade

Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains

Each vSwitch creates and connects pServers to one, and only one, broadcast domain. Broadcast domains define the node membership and network boundaries of a network. A packet broadcast within a broadcast domain will reach all nodes within the domain. A packet cannot go outside a broadcast domain without the intervention of some other entity, such as a router. Membership in a broadcast domain essentially defines a pServer’s ability to send and receive packets within a network.

PAN broadcast domains support the same features, functionality, and security of conventional broadcast domains, including broadcasting and multicasting.

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Creating and configuring a broadcast domain and the vEth and vSwitch components is functionally equivalent to creating physical networks with conventional hardware.

The following list provides brief descriptions of creating vSwitches and broadcast domains:

• Creating vEths — Administrators can create vEths as they build pServers, or any time after pServer creation, to add connectivity to a new broadcast domain.

• Assigning MAC Addresses — Administrators need to assign Media Access Control (MAC) addresses to vEths to provide a data link or physical address for the vEth.

• Creating and Allocating vSwitches — Administrators can allocate a vSwitch to a single LPAN or to multiple LPANs to allow pServers in separate LPANs to participate in the same broadcast domain.

• Configuring Network Ports for VLAN Connectivity — To define connectivity to external hardware and networks, administrators need to configure network ports for the connection.

• Connecting vEths to vSwitches — After creating vSwitches and vEths, administrators simply connect the two components through the GUI or CLI to establish network connectivity. vSwitch.

Internetworking

The PAN fully supports internetworking, or connecting separate broadcast domains through a router or firewall. Administrators can connect broadcast domains (internal and external to the PAN) using the same network components and similar procedures for conventional network:

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• Routing Between Broadcast Domains — Administrators can configure a pServer as a router using Linux functionality, or use a router that is external to the PAN to route between subnets. Broadcast domains can contain multiple subnets, and each subnet can be further divided into smaller subnets.

• Firewalls — In addition to routers, administrators can set up firewalls and connect subnets in a similar manner.

• IP Protocol — The PAN fully supports the IP protocol (IPv4) and standard Linux IP aliasing.

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Support — The PAN fully supports DHCP for all pServers connected to a vSwitch that has an uplink.

• Simple Network Management Protocol — Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a network management protocol used to manage host computers on a network, as well as the network infrastructure itself. SNMP agents store data about themselves in Management Information Bases (MIBs). The PAN supports SNMP by exporting (through SNMP agents) the MIBs that describe the following components that make up the PAN virtual network topology:

• vEths

• rEth connections

• vSwitches

For more information about how to display the network topology using SNMP agents, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Network Operation

This section discusses the options for configuring network operation:

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• Load-Balancing and Failover Policies — The external network connectivity of a PAN is implemented using two network endpoints:

• A rEth connection on each cBlade

The rEth connection is referred to as a network port.

This pairing of Ethernet connections provides load-balancing and failover capability for PAN network connectivity.

Note: PAN Manager also provides application load-balancing and failover policies, discussed in Chapter 5, “High-Availability Applications”.

Administrators can choose from the following load-balancing policies:

• Single Send/Receive (Pair) — This policy states that all incoming and outgoing network traffic be sent and received over the network port of a single blade (where blade is a cBlade or sBlade, depending on the platform).

• Single Send/Receive (Static) — This policy states that both outgoing and incoming network traffic be statically assigned to each blade (where blade is a cBlade or sBlade, depending on the platform).

• Flow Control — To accommodate computing environments that configure the physical network to prevent the dropping of data packets, PAN Manager provides a mechanism called flow control. The following are the two types of flow control:

• pServer to external network flow control — All data packets transmitted from one or more vEths that reside on one or more pServers reach the network port(s) on the cBlade(s) without being dropped.

• pServer to pServer flow control — All data packets transmitted from the cBlade internal broadcast mechanism reach the vEths on one or more pServers without being dropped.

See PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide for more information.

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• Rate Control — PAN Manager provides a mechanism called rate control that allows administrators to control the rate of network traffic for each vEth that resides on a pServer.

The rate control feature provides either a rate limit or a rate setting, depending on the platform:

• The rate limit for a vEth, which is the upper bound of the network transfer rate. Administrators can set a rate limit for all vEths associated with a pServer.

For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

• Optimizing rEths — To evenly distribute pServer traffic leaving and entering the platform, we recommend setting pServers, cBlades, sBlades, and their network connections using the following principles:

• Split network port traffic between cBlade or sBlade hosts

• Activate Both network ports in a rEth, and balance the traffic

• — Network Port Packet Filtering — The network ports do not perform packet filtering. The platform relies on the external switch to perform a measure of packet filtering to permit only those packets addressed to a pBlade to pass through.

• Internal Shortcuts — The switching software on the sBlade determines whether pBlade-to-pBlade traffic is routed directly point-to-point through the fabric for performance, or whether it must be routed through a cBlade.

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Chapter 5High-Availability

Applications

PAN Manager provides application configuration, management, and high-availability (HA) features for stand-alone applications and load-balancing services. Administrators can use PAN Manager to define failover policies, and assign other resources to stand-alone applications and load-balancing services to take advantage of the flexibility and inherent high-availability features of the PAN.

Note: High-availability features are supported under Linux-based pServer operating systems. For information about support under other operating systems, see the pServer Guide for your platform.

This chapter provides the following information about configuring high-availability applications in a PAN:

• Configuring High-Availability Applications

• Using Application Resources

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Configuring High-Availability Applications

The PAN simplifies the process of configuring applications and application services, by providing all hardware and network resources for running applications, and by providing PAN Manager software to manage applications and load-balancing services.

The following list provides an overview for high-availability applications:

• PAN Manager Role in High Availability — After installing applications on a Linux pServer and placing the applications under PAN Manager control, administrators can use the PAN Manager to manage and monitor them. (PAN Manager application control is not supported for Windows applications.)

• High Availability and Failover — Failover helps to ensure that one or more applications can quickly migrate from a primary pServer to a failover pServer after a hardware, operating system, or application failure.

• Application Services Load Balancing — A load-balancing service allows administrators to run multiple instances of the same application, all of which are accessible through the same IP address and port. PAN Manager load balancing support is based on the Linux Virtual Server (LVS) package.

PAN Manager supports the following member selection policies:

• Round-robin — The load balancer forwards service requests by sending the request to the next member pServer in the list.

• Weighted round-robin — The load balancer creates a scheduling sequence based on the priority or weight (“1” or higher) that the administrator assigns to each member pServer.

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High-Availability Applications

• Least connected — The load balancer tracks the number of connections on all member pServers in the load-balancing service, and directs service requests to the member that has the least number of current connections.

• Weighted least-connected — This member forwarding policy is based on the member’s static weight and the number of current connections.

For more information about LVS, see the documentation included with the LVS package or see the following web site:

http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org

Using Application Resources

Resources are logical groupings of unique types of configuration information. Each resource type is a building block that serves a purpose, such as starting and stopping an application, or providing a disk, network connection, failover policy, or health monitor.

Services can be started and stopped manually or automatically (for example, autostart, pServer failover, mon restart, mon failover, mon give up). Failover policies are not started, but are used to determine which pServer the service will attempt to run on in case of a failover or move. Health monitors are started automatically by PAN Manager after the service successfully starts.

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http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org


Resources are accessible with both CLI and GUI, as shown in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1 High Availability GUI Display

The following list provides an overview for application resources:

• Failover Policies — Failover policies determine which pServer(s) that a high-availability service can move or failover to. There are two basic types of policies:

• Ordered (default) — The pServers are chosen the same way for each service configured with it: the pServers are ordered from the lowest number (starting with 1) to the highest, with unordered pServers (order value of 0) last.

• Round-robin — The pServers are ordered and attempted in the same manner as an ordered policy. However, the next pServer in the list is then marked as the first one to try the next time the policy is used, for any service in the LPAN.

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High-Availability Applications

• Network Resources — Network resources allow you to configure an IP, netmask, and broadcast address on a pServer.

• SCSI File System Resources — SCSI file system resources include both disks and tapes. SCSI disks and tapes are automatically added to a pServer when started. If a service fails over with no PAN Agent available, the disk or tape is disabled and is not usable on the pServer again until that pServer has been rebooted.

• Network File System Resources — NFS resources allow you to mount a network shared directory. This allows services to access storage not made available within the LPAN.

• Application Health Monitors — Health monitors are important for keeping HA services available. They periodically test the connection to the service, and can be configured to trigger a service restart, failover, or stop.

Health monitors can have multiple monitor instances: a local monitor running on the same pServer as the service, and one or more remote monitors running on other pServers in the LPAN.

• User Defined Monitor Resources — User defined monitor resources are a collection of attributes such as event name, comparator type, schedule interval, and so on, that allow users to create a set of health, status, or statistical monitors whose events can be used to enhance control over PAN Manager behaviors.

• Executable Resources — The purpose of these resources is to start and stop various aspects of the application, and they can be invoked by the administrator at arbitrary times after an application is started and before it is stopped.

• Application-Associated Environment Variables — PAN Manager provides environment variables to pass data to those programs, without the need to parse command line arguments.

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• Disabling/Enabling Application Services on a pServer — A pServer user that possesses root permission on a pServer can disable any application services from running on the pServer. For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

• High-Availability Application Templates — These templates are a set of resources (usually executable resource definitions) that are common to a particular type of application. Currently, PAN Manager provides one template, for VMware VM. Application templates are preinstalled in PAN Manager and cannot be modified in any way.

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Chapter 6Software Releases

This chapter describes the system software on the cBlades and pBlades that provides support for PAN Manager. This chapter consists of the following topics:

• Types of Software Releases

• Operating System Versions

• Installation Options

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Types of Software Releases

PAN software includes cBlade software, and pBlade software, hypervisor software, and Intelligent Platform Management System (IPMS) software. Figure 6.1 shows the major categories of PAN software and their subcomponents.

Figure 6.1 PAN Software

pBlade Hardware

cBlade Hardware

IPMS

pBlade Hardware

FirmwareFirmware

BladePlane

Firmware

Linux, Windows, or SolarisRH Linux

PAN Manager PAN Agent

Virtualization Extensions


Guest pServer

. . .Hypervisor

Host OS (RHEL Linux)


pServer Software

Hypervisor Software

cBlade Software PAN Agent Guest pServer

vBlade vBlade

SNMP

Management Module (MM) or Blade (MMB)

Overall Hardware Platforms Other Platforms

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Software Releases

cBlade Software The cBlade software includes the operating system, virtualization extensions, and PAN Manager, BIOS, and firmware.

Operating System and Virtualization Extensions

The cBlades run the Red Hat operating system plus a set of virtualization extensions.

PAN Manager

PAN Manager software allows you to manage the following:

• Administrative roles and privileges

• Hardware resources

• Applications

• Hardware and application failover and failback

• Monitors and events

PAN Manager software provides a CLI and a GUI for system and application configuration and monitoring.

BIOS and Firmware

Fujitsu Siemens Computers provides proprietary BIOS and firmware in its hardware platforms. For information on firmware updates, see “Firmware Updates” on page 6-9.

pBlade Software The pBlade software can be pServer software or hypervisor software. The pServer software includes the operating system, virtualization extensions, and PAN agent, BIOS, and firmware. The hypervisor software includes all of the pServer components plus the hypervisor and guest pServers.

Operating System and Virtualization Extensions

The pBlades can run the Linux, Windows, or Solaris operating systems plus a set of virtualization extensions.

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Hypervisor and Guest Operating Systems

As an alternative to the Linux, Windows, or Solaris pServers, pBlades can run the hypervisor plus one or more guest operating systems. See Using vBlades for more information.

PAN Agent

The PAN Agent performs management functions on the pBlade on behalf of PAN Manager. Specifically, the PAN Agent provides health and performance monitors, graceful startup and shutdown of pServers, application HA, and load-balancing clusters.

Note: In vBlade configurations, PAN Agent does not run on the guest pServers, but does provide some control over the hypervisor. For more information, see Using vBlades.

Virtual BIOS

Using PAN Manager, the administrator can configure the pServer’s firmware options to modify the following attributes when booted on a pBlade:

• Hyperthreading

• Memory Node Interleaving

• Virtualization Extensions

• Hardware Prefetch

Default configurations can be viewed through the CLI and GUI. Configurations can be changed on each pServer through the CLI or GUI.

Note: Firmware settings are only applicable to pServers booted on pBlades supporting the associated hardware features. For example, it is not possible to disable hyperthreading when a pServer is booted on a pBlade that does not support hyperthreading.

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Software Releases

Intelligent Platform Management System

The platform provides hardware event, monitoring, and management features through the Intelligent Platform Management (IPM) system. The IPM system provides an interconnect between the distributed components of the platform to send and gather system messages, and to power and boot blades. Management features include the following:

• Powering on and powering off blades remotely

• Booting cBlades and pBlades remotely

• Monitoring and notifying of voltage, fan, temperature, and power status events

• Discovering pBlades

• Providing pBlade ID, processor, and memory information

• Locating a pBlade by slot number

The IPM system provides a message-based communication interface to send and receive event and monitoring information. The IPM system incorporates the following components:

• Intelligent Platform Management Bus (IPMB) — The bus that resides on the pBlades and cBlades to connect the major board components.

• Intelligent Chassis Management Bus (ICMB) — The bus within the BladePlane that connects the pBlades and cBlades.

• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) — The software interface to send and receive information through the IPMB and ICMB.

The IPM system uses messages to pass monitoring and event information along to management software. The flexibility of the system supports multiple hardware configurations and multiple communications channels simultaneously. PAN Manager allows administrators to monitor the IPM system events and notifications.

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Operating System Versions

This section discusses the operating systems that support PAN Manager and the pServers.

Supported Operating Systems

Table 6.1 lists the operating systems supported at the time of writing.

Table 6.1 Supported Operating Systems

Note: See the support web site (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support) for the latest list of supported pServer operating systems. If you are using SAN tape devices, you need both a platform and pServer that explicitly supports tape devices; see PAN Manager Release Notes for details.

cBlades/pServers Operating Systems

cBlades Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5

pServers Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0



SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8



Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Sun Solaris 10

VMware ESX 3

Guest pServers

See Using vBlades for a complete list.

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Software Releases

On pServers, administrators have the flexibility to boot any of the supported operating systems. PAN Manager (CLI and GUI) supports all operating system versions and places no PAN- or LPAN-level restrictions within an LPAN.

For more information:

• For compatibility and valid upgrade paths of cBlade operating systems, see PAN Manager Release Notes.

• For installation, compatibility, and valid upgrade paths of pServer operating systems, see the pServer Guide for the specific operating system.

Guest Operating Systems

Administrators can use guest operating systems in different contexts:

• With the PAN Manager hypervisor option that takes advantage of the integrated vBlade feature. See Using vBlades for more information.

• With a pServer that provides its own hypervisor support for guest operating systems, such as RHEL 5 and SLES 10. See the applicable OS documentation for more information.

The cBlade software provides full support for generic Layer 2 network switching. This in turn allows guest operating systems, which reside on virtual machines (VMs), to be configured on pServers.

Contact Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support to learn more about pServer support for guest operating systems.

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Installation Options

This section describes the different options for installing the cBlade, pServer, and hypervisor/guest software. It also describes options for updating firmware.

cBlade Software Installation

Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support installs the operating system on the cBlades directly from installation media using the included installation utility.

pServer Software Installation

Administrators install the operating system(s) on the pServers using operating system vendor and Fujitsu Siemens Computers installation tools. Administrators can perform pServer installations from the following:

• Installation media — This option is ideally suited for administrators who have physical access to the cBlade to install the operating system from the installation media to the pServers.

• A network attached server (NAS) using a network file system (NFS) — This option is best for administrators who do not have physical access to the cBlade or who need to access the operating system installation software from different locations. The administrator copies the contents of the installation media to a server that is accessible, by means of NFS, from the cBlade. The administrator then installs the operating system from this server to the pServers.

• An ISO image inserted in a VCD — For platforms that do not provide pServer access to physical DVD-ROM drives, this method provides a way of installing from virtual media in a virtual media drive.

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Software Releases

Hypervisor and Guest Installation

To use the vBlade feature, you must obtain the hypervisor software, which you purchase from Fujitsu Siemens Computers as a separate option. For information on vBlade requirements, see Using vBlades. For instructions on installing the hypervisor option, see Installing the vBlades Media.

Firmware Updates

Contact Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support for information on firmware updates.

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6-10 PM5.2_BF

Appendix ABladeFrame Hardware

Configuration

This appendix contains information about various aspects of the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 systems and consists of the following topics:

• Hardware Components

• System Chassis

• BladePlane

• Control Blades

• Switch Blades

• Processing Blades

• Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators

• Power

• Cabling Requirements

• For More Information

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Hardware Components

The BladeFrame platforms are a collection of processors that supply the power needed by enterprise data centers, without the physical constraints of cables, physical space, and power requirements. The hardware architecture includes redundant hot-swappable components that simplify expansion and upgrades.

System Chassis

The hardware components are housed in an enclosed system chassis that hosts the infrastructure for administrators to populate and run the blades. The system chassis provides a secure environment for the resident blades, as well as maximum visibility and airflow. The chassis contains the built-in, prewired BladePlane that provides the physical connectivity for the pBlade I/O, network communication, and power distribution systems.

Figure A.1 shows the location of some of the BladeFrame components discussed in this chapter.

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BladeFrame Hardware Configuration

Figure A.1 BladeFrame Components

The BladeFrame BF400 S2 can be moved in an upright position through doorways and into and out of elevators/lifts worldwide.

The system chassis ships without blades, for ease of movement and installation. After installing the system chassis, administrators can quickly populate it by installing the blade components. The design of the system chassis provides efficiencies in the following areas:

• Footprint — Each chassis type is the size of a standard datacenter rack.

• Cabling — Administrators can redundantly connect a fully populated chassis to power, data storage, and network with a minimal number of cables.

• Blade cooling capacity — The louvered front of the chassis maximizes airflow throughout the system. Each blade module cools itself.

PM5.2_BF A-3


• Component visibility — The quarter-panel glass door allows administrators to view the individual blades and read the light emitting diode (LED) displays and slot numbers, while keeping the blades in a clean secure environment.

• On-site administration — Administrators can connect a laptop computer to serial ports located on the front of each cBlade.

System Chassis Specifications

Table A.1 and Table A.2 show various specifications for the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 chassis, respectively.

Table A.1 BladeFrame BF400 S2 System Chassis Specifications

Table A.2 BladeFrame BF200 System Chassis Specifications

Component Specifications

Dimensions 23 in. wide, 82.5 in. high, 30 in. deep 58.42 cm wide, 209.55 cm high, 76.2 cm deep

Weight 1000 pounds / 454 Kilograms maximum for a fully configured system chassis

Blade configurations

Minimum: 2 cBlades, 1 pBlade, 2 sBlades

Maximum: 2 cBlades, 24 pBlades, 2 sBlades

Power cables See Table A.10.

Operating environment

Temperature: 41º F to 95º F(5º C to 35º C)Altitude: up to 6000 feet / 1829 meters above sea levelHumidity (non-condensing): 10-80%

Acoustics Computer room/data center compatible


Dimensions 17.5 in. wide, 22.75 in. high, 29 in. deep /44.45 cm wide, 57.79 cm high, 73.66 cm deep

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BladePlane

The system chassis includes the BladePlane (commonly referred to as the spine), which is composed of a high-speed serial fabric that provides the physical inner network of the system. The cBlades and pBlades (and on the BladeFrame BF400 S2, sBlades) connect to the BladePlane through blind-mate connections at the rear of the system chassis. The BladePlane provides the power distribution, blade identification mechanism, and ability to power blades on and off remotely.

The BladePlane also includes a message passing channel for the Intelligent Platform Management (IPM) system. PAN Manager software uses this channel to monitor and report hardware events.

System air flow direction is from front to back, with no air filters. The IPM system monitors fan rotation and ambient temperature, and reports any failures to the PAN Manager software.

Weight 256 pounds / 115.2 Kilograms maximum for a fully configured system chassis

Blade configurations

Minimum: 2 cBlades, 1 pBlade

Maximum: 2 cBlades, 6 pBlades

Power cables See Table A.11.

Operating environment

Temperature: 23º F to 95º F(-5º C to 35º C)Altitude: up to 6000 feet / 1829 meters above sea levelHumidity (noncondensing): 10-80%

Acoustics Computer room/data center compatible


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On the BladeFrame BF400 S2, the BladePlane is designed to provide increased fabric bandwidth: 8 Gbps to each cBlade slot and 2 Gbps to each pBlade slot.

Control Blades

The cBlades provide a centralized server to manage pBlade I/O and host management software. The cBlades also contain Ethernet ports and DVD-ROM drives. For cBlade locations, see Figure A.1 on page A-3.

The minimum system configuration provides redundant cBlades for inherent high-availability and the load balancing of inbound and outbound traffic. The cBlades are hot-swappable. In a failover scenario, the system can operate with only one cBlade.

In a normal configuration, PAN Manager recognizes one cBlade as the master, while the other cBlade (the slave) remains available for failover. The default load-balancing policy for cBlade networking I/O is Pair mode, in which primary Ethernet interfaces on one cBlade handle all incoming and outgoing network traffic. Their counterpart (standby) Ethernet interfaces on the other cBlade remain ready to accept all I/O in case the active Ethernet interface fails.

Each cBlade can include one or more of the following:

• Gigabit Ethernet connections, either all fibre, or all copper, by means of small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs); (for network)

• Gigabit Fibre Channel connections (for data storage)

• 10/100/1000 (on cBlade EX) Ethernet connection (for management)

On the BladeFrame BF200, all external ports for the cBlades are located on the BladePlane.

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Different types of cBlades meet the needs of various implementations: the cBlade EX, which provides increased SAN fabric bandwidth and Ethernet network throughput, and the cBlade ES, which provides a combination of cBlade and sBlade features for the BladeFrame BF200.

The Ethernet ports of the cBlade EX (ETH1 through ETH4) can accept either copper or optical cables, depending on which small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) are configured on these ports. (SFPs are not customer-replaceable; only Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support, or your authorized support vendor, can replace them. SFPs are not hot-swappable: you must shut down the BladeFrame BF400 S2 to replace them.)

In addition, each cBlade EX contains a PCI-X expansion NIC that contains four copper-only 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports.

Note: Rolling upgrades from one cBlade type to another are not supported because both cBlades must have the same hardware configuration.

cBlade Configurations

Table A.3 shows the configuration specifications for the BladeFrame BF400 S2 (cBlade EX) and for the BladeFrame BF200 (cBlade ES).

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Table A.3 cBlade Configurations

cBlade Physical Specifications

Table A.4 shows the physical specifications for the cBlade EX; Table A.5 shows the physical specifications for the cBlade ES.

cBlade ProcessorsInterleavedECCMemory

Cache Configuration Options

cBlade EX 2-way Dual Core AMD Opteron,2.2 GHz

4 GB, DDR 400

1 MB L2

• One 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet Management Port

• One serial port

• Four Fibre Channel data storage ports

• Four Copper Gigabit Ethernet ports in a Quad PCI-X adapter

and either:

• Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, using small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) for fibre

or:

• Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, using small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) for copper

cBlade ES 2-way SMP Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz

2GB 512 KB L2

1. Two Fibre Channel data storage connections

2. Two Gigabit Ethernet connections (either copper or fibre)

3. One 10/100 management port

4. One serial port (connections in front and rear)

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Table A.4 cBlade EX Specifications

Table A.5 cBlade ES Specifications

Components Specifications

Height 7.0 inches / 17.8 centimeters

Weight 44 pounds / 20 kilograms

Hard drive 137GB Ultra DMA EIDE disk

Console port Front-accessible: RS-232

Management interface ports

One front-accessible10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet port

Media drive 40X (1 per cBlade)

Power supply Independent of other blades

Cooling mechanism Self-contained front to back

Hot-pluggable Yes

LED states Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected

Components Specifications

Width (vertical mount)

2.1 inches / 5.3 centimeters

Weight 22 pounds / 9.9 kilograms

Hard drive 60GB Ultra DMA EIDE disk

Console port Front- and rear-accessible: RS-232

Management interface ports

Rear-accessible: serial, 10/100 Ethernet

Media drive 8X DVD, 24X CD (1 per cBlade)


Hot-pluggable Yes

LED states Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected

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Switch Blades

In the BladeFrame BF400 S2, sBlades provide the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades. (In the BladeFrame BF200, this capability is provided by switch cards that are incorporated into the control blades.)

sBlade Physical Specifications

A BladeFrame BF400 S2 includes two hot-swappable sBlades that provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. The sBlade serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to dynamically create connections among pServers.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant host adapters for sBlade connections. If a host adapter or sBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific sBlade, the sending blade will then send all traffic to the other sBlade. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant sBlades load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

The sBlade supports up to eight fabric connections to each cBlade.

Table A.6 shows the physical specifications for the sBlade.

Table A.6 sBlade Specifications

Component Specification


Weight 20 pounds / 9 kilograms



Hot-pluggable Yes

LED States Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected

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cBlade Switches In the BladeFrame BF200, each cBlade contains a switch component that provides the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades.

The cBlade switches provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. The cBlade switch serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to dynamically create connections among pServers.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant host adapters for internal switch connections. If a host adapter or cBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific cBlade switch, the sending blade then sends all traffic to the other cBlade switch. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant cBlade switches load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

Processing Blades

The pBlades are hot-swappable and provide the processing power for applications that are installed on pServers. For pBlade locations, see Figure A.1 on page A-3.

The pServers use a remote I/O architecture that connects them to storage resources external to the system. The pBlades rely on their physical BladePlane connections (through host adapters), as well as their software interfaces, to create these I/O connections. The same hardware and software components provide the network connections.

Because the pServers have no peripherals or console ports, administrators work remotely (through Telnet, SSH clients, or the PAN Manager GUI). Remote management includes powering, booting, and shutting down the pServers.

PM5.2_BF A-11


The configuration of a pBlade is identified by the part number, which takes the form S26361-K1xxx-Vyyy and is found either on the BladeLatch handle, or on the product ID label on the top of the pBlade chassis.

pBlade Physical Specifications

Table A.7 describes the physical specifications for a pBlade. Refer to the Fujitsu Siemens Computers web site (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support) for the most up-to-date pBlade physical specifications, or contact Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support.

Table A.7 pBlade Physical Specifications

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators

Each blade has a light emitting diode (LED) indicator to identify the blade’s current state. Each LED uses two colors (amber and blue) and two states (blinking and solid) to identify the state of a blade. All functioning and powered blades display one of four states, and progressively move through the first three states in the order shown in the following table.



Weight 25 to 30 pounds / 11.3 to 13.6 kilograms



Customer replaceable

Yes

Hot-pluggable Yes

LED States Standby, Recognized, Active, Selected

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Table A.8 LED States

The definition of the four states can differ based on the hosting blade, and the states can change with specific management software instructions. For a complete discussion of the LED indicators and their state information, see READ THIS FIRST: PAN Manager Configuration Guide.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators

Each blade has a light emitting diode (LED) indicator to identify the blade’s current state. Each LED uses two colors (amber and blue) and two states (blinking and solid) to identify the state of a blade. All functioning and powered blades display one of four states, and progressively move through the first three states in the order shown in the following table.

Table A.9 LED States

Blade State LED Color and Action

Standby Amber, blinking

Recognized Amber, solid

Active Blue, solid

Selected Blue, blinking

Blade State LED Color and Action

Standby Amber, blinking

Recognized Amber, solid

Active Blue, solid

Selected Blue, blinking

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The definition of the four states can differ based on the hosting blade, and the states can change with specific management software instructions. For a complete discussion of the LED indicators and their state information, see READ THIS FIRST: PAN Manager Configuration Guide.

Power

Basic and Redundant Power Input Modules

On a BladeFrame BF400 S2, Power Input Modules (PIMs) provide both basic (PIM-B) and redundant (PIM-R) power sources and attach to the spine on the rear of the chassis. You can configure either four PIM-Bs or four PIM-Rs.

• PIM-B -- The basic PIM has no active hardware or firmware. It is a completely passive unit. Each PIM-B has a single attached power cable, so a system configured with PIM-Bs has four power cables.

• PIM-R -- The redundant PIM provides the ability to attach independent power feeds to the platform. Each PIM-R has two attached power cables for the independent power sources, so a platform configured with PIM-Rs has eight power cables.

The PIM-R also provides support for intelligent managed power. On a platform that has four PIM-Rs configured, you can use PAN Manager to configure a preferred power cord, and soft limits on current and voltage. You can also monitor the input voltage for each line, input frequency (Hz), output power and current, and the status of any power settings you have configured.

Both versions of the PIM are available in 20- and 30-amp configurations for North American and Japanese customers and 16- and 24-amp configurations for International customers.

For information about power domains, see “Power Domains”.

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Power Domains On a BladeFrame BF400 S2, the BladePlane distributes power to four distinct sets of blades: each set is a power domain. By contrast, on a BladeFrame BF200, all blades (cBlades and pBlades) reside in a single power domain.

Power requirements for smaller configurations vary by the configuration and number of pBlades; however, administrators need to plug in all power cords before populating the chassis.

The PAN Manager software (GUI and CLI) allows administrators to monitor power. See the PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide for more information about power monitoring.

BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Domains

A platform on which four PIM-Bs are configured requires four power cords; a platform on which four PIM-Rs are configured requires eight power cords.

The power requirements vary by the pBlade processor architecture and the total number of pBlades. Customers in the United States and Japan can order a system chassis that has a 20- or 30-amp BladePlane. International customers can order 16- or 24-amp BladePlanes.

Administrators of 20-Ampere systems can combine the A and C, and B and D power domains into single domains that require only one power cord each. This allows the full system to be powered by two cords, not counting any cords required by optional PIM-Rs.

The A and B power domains and cords each power a set of the following:

• One cBlade

• One sBlade

• Six pBlades

The C and D power domains and cords power six pBlades each.

PM5.2_BF A-15


The following figure shows the power domains and their physical layout.

Figure A.2 BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Domains

BladeFrame BF200 Power Domain

On a BladeFrame BF200, all blades (cBlades and pBlades) reside in a single power domain. The power requirements vary by the pBlade processor architecture (two or four processors) and total number of pBlades. Customers in the United States can order a system chassis with 20- or 30-Ampere BladePlanes. International customers can order 16-Ampere BladePlanes.

Power Failure This section describes the effect of a power failure to the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200.

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BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Failure with PIM-Bs

In the event of a power failure to one or more cords or power domains, the following policies take effect:

• cBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes a cBlade, causes the cBlade to fail over to the remaining cBlade, which assumes all I/O and management functions. A failure to both the A and B power domains disables the platform.

• sBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes an sBlade causes the sBlade to fail over to the remaining sBlade, which assumes all switching functionality. A failure to both the A and B power domains disables the platform.

• pBlade — A power failure to any domain with a running pBlade initiates a pBlade failover, and implements the failover policy of the affected pServers.

BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Failure with PIM-Rs

This section describes the effect of a power failure on a platform with PIM-Rs installed. In the event of a power failure to one or more cords or power domains, the following policies take effect:

• cBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes a cBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the cBlade fails over to the remaining cBlade, which assumes all I/O and management functions. A failure to all power cords of the A and B power domains disables the BladeFrame BF400 S2.

• sBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes an sBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the sBlade fails over to the remaining sBlade, which assumes all switching functionality. A failure to all power cords of the A and B power domains disables the BladeFrame BF400 S2.

PM5.2_BF A-17


• pBlade — A power failure to any domain with a running pBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the pBlade initiates a pBlade failover, and implements the failover policy of the affected pServers.

BladeFrame BF200 Power Failure

The BladePlane distributes power to all blades using one power cord. If an AC power failure occurs on that cord, the entire system will lose power. To avoid this situation, follow these guidelines:

• Equip the platform with a static transfer switch (STS) that provides redundant power.

• Connect the alternate power source that is fed through the STS to a separate AC power source, preferably an uninterruptable power supply.

Power Specifications

The following are the power specifications for the AC power cords provided with each BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200:

• 200/240 volts (tolerance: 180-264 VAC)

• 50/60 Hz (tolerance: 47-63 Hz)

• Auto-ranging

• Single phase

• 20 or 30 Amperes, depending on models

Cabling Requirements

Step A.10 on page A-19 and Table A.11 show the minimum and maximum number of cables required when installing a BladeFrame BF400 S2 or BladeFrame BF200, respectively.

A-18 PM5.2_BF


Table A.10 BladeFrame BF400 S2 Cabling Requirements

Table A.11 BladeFrame BF200 Cabling Requirements

ConnectionMin. # ofCables

Max. # ofCables

Notes

Power 4 8 30- and 16-Ampere spines assumed, with each of four power domains being serviced by a redundant Power Input Module (PIM-R) for redundancy. Without redundancy, using basic Power Input Modules (PIM-Bs), the 30- and 16-Ampere systems can be powered by four cables. (For details about configuring PIMs, see the PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.)

10/100/1000 Ethernet Mgmt ports

2 2 Each cBlade EX contains one 10/100/1000 management port for administration from a secure network.

Gigabit Ethernet ports

8 8 Eight Ethernet cables per BladeFrame BF400 S2 assumes a standard configuration of four Gigabit Ethernet ports on each cBlade. The Gigabit Ethernet connections can be either fibre or copper, depending on which small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) are configured on these ports. (SFPs are not customer-replaceable; only Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support can replace them.)

10/100/1000 Ethernet Ports

8 8 Assumes the presence of one four port PCI-X expansion NIC on each cBlade.

Fibre Channel (SAN) ports

8 8 Assumes four Fibre Channel SAN ports on each cBlade.

Connection Min. Max. Notes

Power 2 2 Redundancy assumed, with the BladeFrame BF200 being serviced by a Static Transfer Switch (STS). Without redundancy, BladeFrame BF200 can be powered by one cable.

PM5.2_BF A-19


For More Information

For the most up-to-date cBlade physical specifications, cBlade configurations, and pBlade configurations, see the Fujitsu Siemens Computers web site (http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com) or contact Fujitsu Siemens Computers customer support.

10/100 Ethernet Mgmt ports

2 2 Each cBlade requires one 10/100 management port for administration from a secure network.

Gigabit Ethernet ports

2 4 Redundant connection is assumed, for a minimum of two cables. The Gigabit Ethernet connections can be either fibre or copper, depending on the installation of SFP (small form-factor plugs).

Fibre Channel (SAN) ports

2 4 Redundant connection is assumed, for a minimum of two cables.

Connection Min. Max. Notes

A-20 PM5.2_BF

http://www.egenera.com

Index

A

administrative roles/permissions 2-12applications

health monitors 2-10, 5-5templates 5-6

applying resource maps 2-15assigning MAC addresses 4-6

B

BIOS 6-3BladeFrame ES, specifications A-1BladeFrame EX

chassis A-2power requirements A-15specifications A-1

BladePlane 1-2, A-5boot options 3-7broadcast domains 1-11, 4-5, 4-6

C

cabling A-18cache, cBlades A-7cBlades 1-2

configurations A-7description A-6failover 2-11operating system 6-6ports 1-4, A-6power failure A-17software 6-3, 6-8specifications A-8switches A-11

chargebacks 2-13chassis A-2, A-4CLI commands 2-4console 2-5, A-8

D

deleting PAN archives 2-15DHCP configuration 4-7dimensions A-4disaster recovery 2-13disks 1-9

application failover 5-5I/O performance 2-9LPAN resources 3-3mapping 3-6maximum number 1-17

PM5.2_BF Index-1


domains 2-11DVD-ROM drives 3-4

E

environment variables 5-5Ethernet ports 1-4, A-6, A-7, A-18events 2-8executable resources 5-5exporting PAN archives 2-14

F

failoverapplications 5-2cBlades 2-11configuring 3-7PAN Manager 2-10policies 5-2, 5-4

Fibre Channel ports 1-4, A-6, A-7, A-18

firewalls 4-7firmware 6-3flow control 4-8footprint dimensions A-4

G

Gigabit Ethernet ports 1-4, A-6, A-7, A-18

global pools 1-15, 1-17GUI for PAN Manager 2-2

H

hardware A-1

HBAs 1-3health monitors 5-5

I

image archive 2-15importing PAN archives 2-14installation options 6-8internetworking 4-6IP 4-7IPMI 6-5IPMS 6-5

L

least connected policy 5-3LED indicators A-12, A-13listing PAN archives 2-15load balancing

policies 4-8local pools 1-15, 1-17, 3-3LPANs 1-14

administrative roles 2-13description 3-2maximum number 1-16resources 1-14security domain 2-11SNMP agent 2-9

LVS package 5-2

M

MAC addresses 4-6management ports A-8mapping disks and tapes 3-6master role 2-10

Index-2 PM5.2_BF

Index

memory, cBlades A-7merging PAN archives 2-15MIBs 4-7monitoring

application health 2-10events 2-8health and status 5-5power and temperature 6-5SAN I/O 2-9third-party tools 2-10

N

networking 4-1layer 2 support 6-7NICs 4-5resources 5-5rEths 4-5security 4-3

NFS resources 5-5NICs 1-11, 4-5

configuring for VLANs 4-6optimizing rEths 4-9packet filtering 4-9

O

operating systemscBlades 6-3host and guest 3-3installation 6-8pBlades 6-3restrictions 2-7supported versions 6-6

ordered policy 5-4

P

PAN 1-1, 1-6administrative roles 2-12networking 4-1security domain 2-11size guidelines 1-16SNMP agent 2-9

PAN Agent 6-4PAN archives 2-14PAN Manager 6-3

definition 1-5description 2-1events 2-8failover 2-10GUI and CLI 2-2

pathctl utility 2-9pBlades 1-2

description A-11failover 3-7I/O 1-9LPAN resources 3-3operating systems 6-6power failure A-17, A-18selecting 3-6software installation 6-8

permissions 2-12PIMs A-14, A-15, A-18pools 1-15

description 3-5failover 3-7maximum number 1-17selecting 3-6

powercord specifications A-18domains A-15, A-18failure A-16monitoring 6-5

PM5.2_BF Index-3


processors, cBlades A-7pServers 1-8, 1-9

boot options 3-7description 3-6maximum number 1-16operating systems 6-6scripts 5-5software installation 6-8

R

rate control 4-9RCC 2-13remote I/O 1-9remote management 1-9renaming PAN archives 2-15resource maps 2-15restrictions 2-7rEths 1-12, 4-5, 4-9round-robin policy 5-2, 5-4routing 4-7

S

SAN I/O monitoring 2-9saving PAN configurations 2-14sBlades 1-2

description A-10power failure A-17specifications A-10

scheduling PAN archive backups 2-14security domains 2-11security, network 4-3Single Send/Receive policy 4-8slave role 2-10SNMP 2-9, 4-7software versions 2-6

specifications A-1swapping

PAN archives 2-14

T

tapes 1-9application failover 5-5LPAN resources 3-3mapping 3-6maximum number 1-17

templates, HA applications 5-6trunking 1-12

U

uplinks 4-4

V

validating PAN archives 2-14vBlades 1-8, 1-10, 1-17, 3-3VBS 1-7VCD 1-10versions, of software 2-6vEths 1-11, 1-12, 4-4

connecting to vSwitches 4-6creating 4-6maximum number 1-17

viewing PAN archives 2-15virtual components 1-7, 1-16virtual VGA console 2-5virtualized boot services 1-7VLANs 1-12, 4-6VM support 6-7vSwitches 1-11, 1-12, 4-4

Index-4 PM5.2_BF

Index

connecting to vEths 4-6creating 4-6LPAN resources 3-3maximum number 1-17uplinks 4-4

W

weighted least-connected policy 5-3weighted round-robin policy 5-2

PM5.2_BF Index-5


Index-6 PM5.2_BF

PAN Manager Technical Overview

Documents

Transcript of PAN Manager Technical Overview