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Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter (CFFh) for IBM BladeCenter

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Part number information

Table 1. Ordering part number and feature code

Description

Part number

Feature code

Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter (CFFh) for IBM BladeCenter

49Y4235

5755

The part number includes the following items:

One Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter (CFFh)

z

Documentation CD

z

Important Notices flyer

z

Features

Data center managers today are looking to increase hardware utilization to meet the growing needs of 

their organization and virtualization offers a very attractive value proposition. The next-generation IBM 
BladeCenter HS22 servers offer the platform with balanced processor and memory to enable them to 
create more VMs per server, but I/O is already becoming a bottleneck.

The IBM BladeCenter virtual fabric offering addresses these issues and extends these value propositions 

to non-virtualized environments. This solution enables clients to get up to eight virtual ports that can be 
tailored to meet the bandwidth requirements of the application. The key components for this offering 
include the 2-port 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter by Emulex and the Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module 
from BNT.

This solution makes use of Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) and can significantly help reduce 

complexity and cost in virtualized environments by reducing switch costs up to 75%, reducing cable and 
adapter costs up to 50%, and achieving better energy efficiency. At the same time, the virtual fabric 
solution gives clients the opportunity to allocate and adjust bandwidth based on actual requirements and 
have investment protection for next-generation technology like I/O convergence.

The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter has the following summary of features:

Connection to either 1 Gb or 10 Gb data center infrastructure (1 Gb and 10 Gb auto-negotiation)

z

PCI Express 2.0 x8 host interface

z

IBM BladeCenter CFFh form factor; can be combined with a CIOv expansion card in the same server

z

Operates either as an 8-port Virtual Fabric Adapter or as a 2-port 1/10 Gb Ethernet adapter

z

Virtual port bandwidth allocation in 100 Mbps increments

z

Supports up to eight virtual ports

z

Wake On LAN support

z

Full-duplex (FDX) capability

z

Serial Over LAN (SOL) and concurrent KVM (cKVM) support for enhanced BladeCenter management

z

Bus-mastering support

z

Direct memory access (DMA) support

z

Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) support

z

Summary of Contents for Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter

Page 1: ...Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter Did you know This adapter is based on industry standard PCIe architecture and offers the flexibility to operate as a Virtual NIC Fabric Adapter or as a dual port 10 Gb or 1 Gb Ethernet device Because this adapter supports up to eight virtual NICs on a single dual port Ethernet adapter you see potential benefits in cost power cooling and data center footprint...

Page 2: ... Fabric Adapter by Emulex and the Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module from BNT This solution makes use of Converged Enhanced Ethernet CEE and can significantly help reduce complexity and cost in virtualized environments by reducing switch costs up to 75 reducing cable and adapter costs up to 50 and achieving better energy efficiency At the same time the virtual fabric solution gives clients the oppo...

Page 3: ...f 10 Gb per virtual port vNICs can also be configured to have 0 bandwidth if you must allocate the available bandwidth to fewer than eight vNICs To support vNIC mode operation the expansion card must communicate with the BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module which provides independent control for each vNIC In pNIC mode the expansion card can operate as a standard 10 Gbps or 1 Gbps 2 port Ethernet ...

Page 4: ...d in the IBM BladeCenter servers listed in Table 2 Table 2 Supported servers Expansion card Part number Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh 49Y4235 N N N Y N N N N N N N N Figure 2 shows where the CFFh card is installed in a BladeCenter server Figure 2 Location on the BladeCenter server planar where the CFFh card is installed ...

Page 5: ...CFFh supports in either standard physical port mode pNIC or virtual NIC vNIC mode Table 3 I O modules supported with the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh Description Part number vNIC mode BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module 46C7191 N N Y N Y N N BNT 6 port 10 Gb High Speed Switch Module 39Y9267 N N N N N N N 10Gb Ethernet Pass Thru Module 46M6181 N N N N N N N Cisco Nexus 4001I Switch Module 4...

Page 6: ...ic Adapter CFFh requires that two I O modules be installed in bays 7 and 9 of the BladeCenter H and HT chassis as shown in Table 4 Table 4 Locations of I O modules required to connect to the expansion card Expansion card I O bay 7 I O bay 8 I O bay 9 I O bay 10 Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh Supported I O module Not used Supported I O module Not used MAC addresses are assigned to the expansion...

Page 7: ... Virtual Fabric Adapter or vNIC mode Each virtual port can be configured z to operate at 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps up to a total maximum of 10 Gb per physical port The default bandwidth is 2 5 Gb per virtual port Two 1 Gb or 10 Gb Ethernet ports physical port or pNIC mode z The components used in this configuration are listed in Table 5 Table 5 Components used when connecting Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapt...

Page 8: ...D64 EM64T z SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for x86 z SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 EM64T z Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition z Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server x64 Edition z VMware ESX 3 5 z Support for operating systems is based on the combination of the expansion card and the blade server on which it is installed See the IBM ServerProven Web site for the latest information ...

Page 9: ...ot part of the materials for this IBM product and use of those Web sites is at your own risk IBM may use or distribute any of the information you supply in any way it believes appropriate without incurring any obligation to you Information concerning non IBM products was obtained from the suppliers of those products their published announcements or other publicly available sources IBM has not test...

Page 10: ...onal Business Machines Corporation in the United States other countries or both These and other IBM trademarked terms may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at http www ibm com legal copytrade shtml The following terms are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States other cou...

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