During planning, you need to plan for the configuration of the advanced management module, I/O modules,
blade servers, and storage.
Configuration tools
Several tools are available to help you configure your BladeCenter S system.
Keyboard, video, and mouse
The advanced management module provides
a set of USB connectors for attaching a keyboard and mouse, and a video connector
for attaching a monitor to the BladeCenter S chassis.
Planning for advanced management module configuration
The BladeCenter S system comes
with a single hot-swap advanced management module located
in the management module bay. Plan for configuration by making decisions and
gathering information for Ethernet interfaces, alerts, login profiles, network
protocols, and security.
Ethernet switch module configuration planning
One Ethernet switch module or copper pass-thru module is required
in switch module bay 1 of your BladeCenter S chassis to
enable communication between the blade servers and an external Ethernet network.
Planning for SAS connectivity module zoning
Plan for the SAS connectivity module and
the zoning of SAS connectivity module ports,
which enables blade servers to access specific hard disk drives.
Planning for SAS RAID controller module
The SAS RAID controller module is
a SAS switch and a RAID controller packaged into a single module.
It is designed to enable you to share the integrated storage among
all blade servers in the BladeCenter S chassis and
implement a RAID solution for that storage.
Replacing SAS connectivity modules with SAS RAID controller modules
If you are currently using SAS connectivity modules and
you want to replace them with SAS RAID controller modules,
make sure that you back up your existing data before you install the SAS RAID controller modules.