I have a HP C7000 Blade chassis that have Ethernet switches in Interconnect bays 1-4, 1GB Fiber Passthrus in 5-6 and SAS switches in 7-8.
Currently I have three blade servers that are using the fiber passthrus to connect to two HP FC switches. Each server has one connection through each passthru. I am running MPIO on each server.
I have recently purchased (2) HP Brodcade 8GB interconnect switches to replace the passthrus with. Ultimately the HP FC switches and connected SAN are being replaced with new equipment.
What I want to do it to replace the passthrus without any down time. Is is possible to remove one of the passthrus and replace it with the switch, get it configured so that server would be connected to the SAN through two switches (HP FC and Brodcade), then replace the other passthru with the other Brodcade switch?
If anyone has done this, do you have a procedure?
Both can be done quite easily but I'm not sure which one you are doing. Will it remain a simple two switch dual fabric after your migration with the storage plugged innto the Brocades in the back of the C7000 or will the Brocades in the C7000 connect to external Brocade switches and then to the SAN? Are there additional non-blade servers connected to the current SAN or will there be in future (since not many externally accessible ports on the new enclosure switches to plug them into).
Are the curent switches connected together as a single redundant fabric or separate as dual fabrics? Should be separate fabrics preferably but it just alters the procedure a little bit.
A before and after sketch of what you intend will clear these Qs up, either way it's fairly simple but there may be fabric licensing issues.