Hp Virtual Connect; Ongoing Proliant Server Transition Strategy - HP BL680c - ProLiant - G5 Introduction Manual

Figure 10. IOV enabled PCIe I/O device
PCIe Port
Physical
Function 1 ATC
1
Resources
1
Configuration
Physical
Internal Routing Function 2
ATC
2
Resources
Resources
2
Physical
Function 3 ATC
PCI Express Endpoint
3
Resources
3
As of mid-2007, detailed specifications for IOV functionality are being finalized by the PCI-SIG.
Standards-based production implementations of IOV-enabled I/O devices will not be generally
available in the market until 2009.

HP Virtual Connect

HP Virtual Connect technology, introduced for the HP BladeSystem c-Class, is designed to virtualize
and manage LAN and SAN connections for a pool of BladeSystem c-Class servers. Virtual Connect is
not a direct part of local server I/O, but it does deal with how server networking I/O resources are
presented to the LAN or SAN. In this sense Virtual Connect is an industry standard-based
implementation of what is often referred to as server-edge I/O virtualization.
HP Virtual Connect is delivered using Virtual Connect Ethernet and Fibre Channel modules that are
designed to work in conjunction with the HP BladeSystem architecture to create an abstraction layer
between a pool of blade servers and the external LAN and SAN networks to which they are
connected. This allows the Virtual Connect infrastructure to present the network with a constant set of
media access control (MAC) addresses and World Wide Names (WWNs) for each server bay in an
enclosure. These address sets, known as server I/O profiles, can then be maintained even if the
underlying server hardware is changed, allowing server replacement or failover events to occur
without requiring reconfiguration of the network infrastructure elements that rely on them.
Virtual Connect technology is covered in detail in additional HP technical briefs which are referenced
at the end of this paper. It is included her to help provide a complete overview of HP server I/O
technologies.

Ongoing ProLiant server transition strategy

HP is committed to ensuring a smooth transition between I/O standards for customers. HP has
introduced PCI Express technology throughout the ProLiant product line while maintaining backward
compatibility with PCI-X 133. This allows ProLiant server customers to install new higher bandwidth
cards (for example, dual 4-Gb Fibre Channel, x4 InfiniBand, and 10-Gb Ethernet) using PCI Express
technology. At the same time, continued HP support of PCI-X allows ProLiant server customers to
connect to their existing I/O cards.
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