Enable HBA in Service Profile by default

[butlpau01]

Hi,

Was hoping you could help.  We have a UCS system running firmware 1.3(1) and are using QLogic CNAs for our HBA & LAN connectivity.

I was wondering if there was a way in the BIOS (or wherever) Policy to enable the HBAs by default as each time we assign a Service Profile they are disabled by default.  We have to go into the Adapter BIOS (CRTL-Q) to enable them.

I have looked everywhere but cannot find out where to enable this or where the configuration might be.  Would be grateful of any insight, even if only to find out that its not possible or is a feature request in the pipeline?!

Many Thanks,

Paul.

[Robert Burns · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately I don't believe there is any way for UCS to hook into theyOption ROM of the Qlogic adapter.

The good news is the that they only have to be enabled once (first time) then they will remain enabled even if relocated to another blade.

The only adatper we're able to enable the option ROM automatically is the M81KR-VIC (aka Palo) adapter.

This may change in the future, but currently this is the only method.

If anyone else has any detail on this they can comment.

Robert

[butlpau01]

Thanks for clearing that up Robert.  I have heard so much about the ability of the

different BIOS settings within UCS that was assuming it was possible but couldn't for the life of me find out

how to do it, or anyone saying that it wasn't possible.

One thing though, when we disassociate a Service Profile from a Blade and reassociate it, we again have to re-enable the HBAs.  If we plainly reboot the Blade the HBAs remain enabled.

Thanks again & best regards,

Paul.

[David McFarland]

If your Service Profile is using local disk for boot and you have defined additional storage using SAN there should be no reason to go into BIOS to enable the FC adapter. That is primarily a precursor to using SAN boot. For SAN boot, you'd see the following: Adapter -Enable, Boot -Enable, Boot Lun Identified. For SAN boot, all of this would be configured by a SAN boot policy.

If you need to access SAN luns with a local disk Service Profile there is no need to enable the adapter. The configuration is handled by the storage policy of the Service Profile. Once the Operating System is installed and HBA drivers installed (if necessary) you will have access to SAN luns.

Going into BIOS is not necessary in this case. Also, as you have discovered making manual changes to BIOS or HBA Option ROM settings will not survive a Service Profile associate/disassociate process. Likewise, moving that Service Profile to another blade (same idea) would not bring along the manual BIOS changes made on the original blade. The purpose of the Service Profile is to completely control the BIOS and Option Rom configurations so it can move to another piece of hardware without additional manual configuration changes.

Although, if you are using local boot, you'd have to move the disks to the new blade

[iwearing]

David,

I am in a similar position installaing ESXI Hypervisor on blade local storage. I have a requirement to access storage Luns for my VMs.

After defining my FC Ports and vHBA to be in the correct VSAN should I have access to the SAN Luns or is further configuration necessary in the SP

thanks

Ian.