A couple of years ago I wrote an article warning people about some quirks in the way the Metaswitch CPU cards from the VP2510/VP3510 era worked. I’m writing an update today to share some details of a new service we’ve developed for those using these cards.
As a refresher, the key points from the previous article are as follows.
- There’s a difference between a CPU card that has been in production and a CPU card that has been configured as a spare.
- This means that trying to insert an unused CPU card into a production chassis could have dire consequences if that card wasn’t configured as a spare.
- Therefore, only cards that are designated as spares can be used as replacements in the event of a hardware failure.
- Even then, there’s a lengthy “recovery bootstrap” process that Metaswitch support need to execute to bring the card into service.
Do you have spare CPU cards?
The key conclusion from my last article was that you needed to make sure that your spare cards really were configured as spare cards, and if not, you needed to see about getting them converted.
The problem today, is that most of these cards (all but the SP4200s) are past their end-of-support date, which means you can’t buy new ones, nor can you request Metaswitch to convert the cards for you.
New Service: Metaswitch SP4100 spare cards
So I’m pleased to announce that we have developed a service where we can convert your unused SP4100 cards into shelf spares, ready for recovery bootstrap. It works like this.
- You ship us one or more Metaswitch SP4100 cards
- We convert them into spares and verify that they show the “B, R, S” prompt (ready for recovery bootstrap) when inserted into a chassis.
- We ship them back to you.
If you ever need to use these, then you’d work with Metaswitch support to execute the recovery bootstrap process during a maintenance window.
Can I buy a spare SP4100 card?
If you don’t have a CPU card in the first place, we do have a small stock of cards pre-configured as spares. We don’t have many of these, but if you’re in a pinch feel free to reach out.
Also, if you have retired a VP2510/3510 chassis, and have CPU cards you don’t need any more, let me know, and we’d be happy to take them off your hands – so we have more available if others need them in the future.
Drop me a line if you
- have old CPU cards you don’t need
- want to convert SP4100 cards into spares
- are looking to purchase spare cards.
We can review your situation and (if appropriate) get you a quote.
