Adapter Features; General Features - Dell Brocade Adapters Installation And Reference Manual

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Adapter features

Storage systems
Using Brocade HBAs you can connect a server (host system) to a Fibre Channel SAN in a switched
fabric and point-to-point topology or directly to a storage array in a point-to-point topology. Refer to
the latest Brocade interoperability matrices for a list of supported server models on Brocade's
website at

Adapter features

This section describes the features associated with all models of the following types of Brocade
adapters:
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General features

Brocade adapters support the following general features for enhanced performance and
connectivity in the SAN and Ethernet networks.
I/O virtualization
Brocade adapters support physical function (PF) based I/O virtualization to provide data isolation
and sharing of the bandwidth resources. Depending on the adapter model or the operating mode
(CNA, HBA, or NIC) assigned to Fabric Adapter ports), from one to eight functions can be supported
per port on the PCI bus. These PFs can be seen as multiple adapters by the host operating system
or hypervisor.
Factory default PF configurations
For each type of adapter, each port has a set base or default PF as follows:
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www.brocade.com/adapters
Fabric Adapters - Refer to the following subsections depending on the port mode and SFP
configurations:
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"General features" on page 16.
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"FCoE features" on page 20, for ports configured in CNA mode.
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"Data Center Bridging and Ethernet features"
NIC modes.
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"HBA features" on page 27, for ports configured in HBA mode.
CNAs- Refer to the following subsections:
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"General features" on page 16.
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"FCoE features" on page 20.
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"Data Center Bridging and Ethernet features"
HBAs - Refer to the following subsections:
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"General features" on page 16.
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"HBA features" on page 27.
For HBA models, each port has one Fibre Channel (FC) function.
For CNA models, each port has one FC function and one Ethernet function.
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on page 22, for ports configured in CNA or
on page 22.
Brocade Adapters Installation and Reference Manual
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