Hey everyone, we are looking to do an upgrade in the future with some of our systems but have ran into a question that could change how we do this upgrade.

Currently we run with HP DL380p's hooked into a network switch cluster and a storage cage. We use a 10GB backbone with CX-4 to handle the data transfer.

The question we have now is will the HP Gen 9+10 platforms support CX-4, or will we need to upgrade our 10Gb backbone to a newer installation such as fiber optic?

Any thoughts on this are appreciated!

@dashrender The PCI-X reference I believe was @JaredBusch asking what kind of connection it was with PCI versus a proprietary HP module. It seems like this card is definitely a PCI-E card.

@scottalanmiller said in Network backbone compatibility question:

@james said in Network backbone compatibility question:

The question we have now is will the HP Gen 9+10 platforms support CX-4, or will we need to upgrade our 10Gb backbone to a newer installation such as fiber optic?

Don't think of fiber as newer. Fiber is still sub-optimal. You never want fiber until it offers you something you were missing... like distance or RF interference avoidance. Overall, copper is vastly preferred until it runs into a problem that fiber can solve.

Did some more research after I saw your comment and I would have to agree with you on this now. We will keep this in mind while thinking about our speed problems here. Everything is same rack or adjacent rack so copper should be fine.

I appreciate the input.

@jaredbusch said in Network backbone compatibility question:

@james said in Network backbone compatibility question:

@dashrender The PCI-X reference I believe was @JaredBusch asking what kind of connection it was with PCI versus a proprietary HP module. It seems like this card is definitely a PCI-E card.

Then you should be good to go.

Awesome. Thank you everyone for your input.

@dashrender The PCI-X reference I believe was @JaredBusch asking what kind of connection it was with PCI versus a proprietary HP module. It seems like this card is definitely a PCI-E card.

@pete-s Gotcha, so while upgrading to fiber instead of staying on CX-4 could be beneficial, if needed the capability of using CX-4 is still available at the max rate speed of the PCI card itself.

@jaredbusch said in Network backbone compatibility question:

@james said in Network backbone compatibility question:

The question we have now is will the HP Gen 9+10 platforms support CX-4, or will we need to upgrade our 10Gb backbone to a newer installation such as fiber optic?

That depends on how it is connected. Is it a standard PCI-X card or a proprietary module?

Hey Jared, these are standard PCI-X expansion cards. We are using the
Intel EXPX9502CX4 10 Gigabit Dual Port CX4 Server Adapter.

Hey everyone, we are looking to do an upgrade in the future with some of our systems but have ran into a question that could change how we do this upgrade.

Currently we run with HP DL380p's hooked into a network switch cluster and a storage cage. We use a 10GB backbone with CX-4 to handle the data transfer.

The question we have now is will the HP Gen 9+10 platforms support CX-4, or will we need to upgrade our 10Gb backbone to a newer installation such as fiber optic?

Any thoughts on this are appreciated!