Why is there no redundancy for the Gigabit Ethernet switch?
The Ethernet switch is used for connecting the management ports of the servers and switches to the outside world. It is intended for administration purposes only and typically there should be very little activity on this switch. In the event the switch fails, the only loss of functionality is the inability to perform certain remote hardware administration tasks like remote power cycling of the servers. The database and the rest of the system are unaffected. The database servers can still be accessed through the external Ethernet ports, and the storage cells can be accessed from the database servers through the InfiniBand network. The HP Database Database Machine also comes with a KVM console as an alternative mechanism for performing administrative tasks.
