Intel Modular Server – Adding A Compute Module

We have a 2 node Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 based cluster up and running on our in-house Intel Modular Server.

We have a new Intel Compute Module MFS5520VI that we installed a pair of Intel Xeon Processor X5650 CPUs into along with 24GB of ECC memory (6 x 4GB 1333HMz DDR3).

When the compute module is first plugged in, it will take a few minutes for it to show up in Modular Server Control (MSC):

Once the compute module shows up we can click through to the Firmware status page. Once there we will see that the compute module did not turn on automatically:

We go ahead and power up the compute module to allow the updates to start.

Back on the firmware status page we will see:

Once the BIOS update has completed the compute module will power cycle itself.

We then need to establish a KVM session with the now up to date compute module so that we can get into the BIOS and make the necessary settings changes:

The key changes that need to be made have to do with enabling Intel Virtualization acceleration features as well as structuring the boot order between the built-in hard disk and USB flash drives.

We need to verify the boot order because we keep a USB flash drive permanently plugged into each compute module. Each USB flash drive is bootable and contains the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 OS install files on it.

Now that we have the hardware set up on our new cluster node, we will go ahead and install the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 OS, install needed drivers, and eventually add the Hyper-V node into our current 2 node cluster.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

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