HP Flex-10, Virtual Connect & vSphere

So there are restrictions to how you can implement this configuration. There are some really good blogs that describe it, such as

http://kennethvanditmarsch.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/understanding-hp-flex-10-mappings-with-vmware/

http://frankdenneman.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/flex-10-lessons-learned/

so I won't repeat what has been said before.

However, the restriction where you are unable to present the same VLAN to more than one FlexNIC on the LOM can be got around if you present the VLAN as a native VLAN (i.e. 0) to one FlexNIC, and apply the VLAN tag to the other FlexNIC.

This is really helpful when you have a virtual vCenter as if this wasn't possible, you would have to put it on a different VLAN to the ESX(i) hosts. However, I have configured it so that vSwitch0 on the hosts is presented with the native VLAN, and the vSwitch (or dvSwitch) that vCenter is attached to is presented with the tagged VLAN.

UPDATE: Whilst this configuration works during normal operation. In the event of loss of Virtual Connect module, or uplinks, all management networking will be lost. This is because the LOM to uplink mapping is hard coded, and whilst you can configure the mapping differently, it will break. Therefore always remember the 1 LOM to on uplink rule.