About interconnects

Interconnects are added automatically when the enclosure that contains them is added to the appliance.

By default, newly added interconnects have their firmware in an unset state.

Managed interconnects

Managed interconnects are an integral part of an enclosure, and each managed interconnect is a member of a logical interconnect. Each logical interconnect is associated with a logical interconnect group, which is associated with an enclosure group. For more information about logical interconnects, see . For information about the relationship that enclosures and enclosure groups have with interconnects, logical interconnects, and logical interconnect groups, see Logical Interconnects.

You can update managed interconnect firmware using an SPP (Service Pack for ProLiant).

Unmanaged interconnects

If you assign an enclosure group (which includes a logical interconnect group) to an enclosure in which the interconnects installed in the enclosure do not match the logical interconnect group, each interconnect reports its state as unmanaged. The physical interconnect configuration in the enclosure must match the logical interconnect group before an interconnect can be managed.

Unsupported interconnects

Unsupported hardware is hardware that the appliance cannot manage.

For c7000, if the appliance detects an interconnect that it does not expect (not defined in the logical interconnect group) or cannot manage, the appliance places it into an inventory state and creates a resource for it, but does not bring it under management. If the location corresponds to the definition in the logical interconnect group, it assigns the interconnect a critical health status and displays an alert with a resolution of replacing the interconnect with a model it can manage. The appliance displays the model name of the unsupported interconnect that it obtains from the OA (Onboard Administrator).

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is used to transport Fibre Channel (FC) storage data over a dedicated Ethernet cable. FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) handles the FC discovery and login process for FCoE networks. FIP uses a Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF), which is an Ethernet switch capable of handling FCoE. An FCF is like a Fibre Channel switch that has Ethernet ports.

FIP provides an Ethernet MAC address used by FCoE to traverse the Ethernet network. FIP obtains the Fibre Channel ID (FC ID) from the Ethernet network, which is required on the Fibre Channel network.

FIP snooping provides statistical data that can be used to monitor, verify, or troubleshoot connectivity.

For a list of interconnects where FIP snooping is supported, see the appropriate support or compatibility matrix on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Information Library.

More information

“Additional uplink port details” in the online help.

“Additional downlink port details” in the online help

The appliance analyzes the health status of interconnects and issues alerts when there is a change in status of an interconnect or port. The appliance maintains the configuration that you specify on the interconnects that it manages.

The appliance also tracks the connectivity status of interconnects. If the appliance loses connectivity with an interconnect, an alert is displayed until connectivity is restored. The appliance attempts to resolve connectivity issues and clear the alert. If it cannot, you have to resolve the issues and manually refresh the interconnect to synchronize it with the appliance.

You can manually refresh the connection between the appliance and an interconnect from the Interconnects screen.