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Chapter 5. Sharing resources among the blade servers
Your Eserver BladeCenter Type 8677 unit provides resources that are available to
all blade servers at all times, such as power modules, cooling, system
management, and network I/O modules; no user intervention is required. Some
resources are selectable for use by a single blade server at a time, such as the
CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port unit (media tray), or the
keyboard-video-mouse unit. There are several ways to select resources for a blade
server:
v Each blade server has two selection buttons on the front of the blade:
CD
and
.
– To switch the keyboard, video, and mouse to a specific blade server, press
the
button on that blade server.
– To switch the CD-ROM, diskette drive, and USB port to a specific blade
server, press the
CD
button on that blade server.
The management module immediately assigns the resource to the blade server
requesting it.
v You can use the management module Web interface to change ownership of the
keyboard, video, and mouse, or the CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port
(Blade tasks→ Remote control).
v You can press keyboard keys in the following sequence to switch KVM control
between blade servers:
NumLock NumLock blade_server_number Enter
Where blade_server_number is the two-digit number for the blade bay in which
the blade server is installed. When using some keyboards, such as the 28L3644
(37L0888) keyboard, you will need to hold down the Shift key while entering this
key sequence.
Notes:
1. It can take up to 20 seconds for the operating system in the switched-to blade
server to recognize the CD-ROM drive, diskette drive, and USB port, or the
keyboard, video, and mouse.
2. If you install Microsoft Windows 2000 on a blade server while it is not the
current owner of the keyboard, video, and mouse, the first time the blade server
requests ownership after the operating system has been installed, it can take up
to 1 minute for the operating system to recognize the devices (this is a
one-time-only occurrance).
3. The operating system in the blade server must provide USB support for the
blade server to recognize and use the keyboard, mouse, CD-ROM drive, and
diskette drive. The BladeCenter unit uses USB for internal communication with
these devices.
4. You can use the management-module Web interface to enable or disable the
select buttons (Blade tasks→ Remote control) on the blade servers.
5. The monitor attached to the BladeCenter management module normally shows
the video output from the blade server that is the current owner of the keyboard,
video, and mouse (KVM). When there is no actively selected video from any
blade server, the video from blade server 14 is routed to the management
module. While the management module is restarting, there is temporarily no
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2002, 2003 51