HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Release Notes for HP-UX 11i v1, 11i v2, and 11i v3 September 2008

Known Problems with Switches
• HP ProCurve Switches
When disabling Cisco's Fast Ether Channel protocol on the HP 9000 server, the HP ProCurve
switches block that particular port from further use.
Severity: Medium
Corrective Action: In order to use the network physical port on the HP 9000 server, physically
move the connection from the server to the switch to another non-Cisco Fast EtherChannel
port on the switch.
• Cisco Catalyst 5000 Switches
— Turning off Cisco's Fast Ether Channel protocol on one network physical port on the
HP 9000 server might cause the entire link aggregate (the port it is associated with) to
be deconfigured.
Severity: High
Corrective Action: Reconfigure the switch; do not include the port in the link aggregate
being configured. See the appropriate switch documentation for information on how
to reconfigure link aggregates.
The Catalyst 5000 switch only allows two- or four-port link aggregates. See the Cisco
Catalyst 5000 Configuration Guide for information about these limitations.
• 3Com SuperStack II Switches
To interoperate with the switch, disable the Trunk Control Message Protocol (TCMP) on all
of the ports that are being used with HP Integrity servers.
Compatibility and Installation Requirements
This section describes the compatibility information and installation requirements for this release.
For specific installation instructions, see the HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Administrator's Guide.
Required Patches
HP APA requires the following patch:
• DLPI patch PHNE_37799 or its superseding patch
You can download patches from the following website:
http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/patch/mainPage.do
Operating System and Version Compatibility
This release is specific for HP-UX 11i v3 (B.11.31.20).
Hardware Requirements
This version of HP APA runs on HP Integrity servers with the HP-UX 11i v3 (B.11.31.20) operating
system.
HP APA supports Cisco's FastEtherChannel (FEC, also known as PAgP) protocol, the Link
Aggregation Control Protocol (IEEE 802.3ad), or manual trunking mechanisms.
HP has tested switches from the following vendors to work with HP APA:
• 3Com
• Cisco
• HP Procurve
• Foundry
• Alteon
18 HP APA Overview for HP-UX 11i v3