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Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x
IBM Redbooks Product Guide
The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter 5 (VFA5) Network Adapter Family for IBM System x builds on the
foundation of previous generations of Emulex VFAs by delivering performance enhancements and new
features that reduce complexity, reduce cost, and improve performance. The Emulex VFA5 family
delivers a new set of powerful features and capabilities that are designed for the virtualized enterprise
environment, multi-tenant and single-tenant cloud environments, I/O intensive environments, and
converged infrastructure environments. The ML2 form factor adapter is shown in the following figure.
Figure 1. Emulex VFA5 ML2 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter
Did you know?
The Emulex VFA5 adapters support three methods to virtualize I/O, out of the box: IBM Virtual Fabric
mode, Switch Independent mode and now Universal Fabric Port (UFP) mode. With virtual fabric, up to
eight virtual network ports (vNICs) can be created with a single two-port 10 GbE network adapter.
Converged protocols iSCSI and FCoE are also supported by the IBM Features on Demand upgrade. By
using a common infrastructure for Ethernet and SAN, and by virtualizing your network adapter, you can
reduce your infrastructure capital expense.
Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x
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Summary of Contents for IBM Redbooks Emulex VFA5
- Page 1 Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x IBM Redbooks Product Guide The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter 5 (VFA5) Network Adapter Family for IBM System x builds on the foundation of previous generations of Emulex VFAs by delivering performance enhancements and new features that reduce complexity, reduce cost, and improve performance.
- Page 2 Documentation CD The FCoE/iSCSI license is delivered in the form of an authorization code that you enter on the IBM Features on Demand website to generate an activation key. Supported transceivers and direct-attach cables The Emulex VFA5 adapter family each have two empty SFP+ cages that support SFP+ SR transceivers and twin-ax direct-attached copper cables, as listed in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively.
- Page 3 3m IBM Active DAC SFP+ Cable 95Y0326 A25B 5m IBM Active DAC SFP+ Cable 95Y0329 A25C The following figure shows the PCIe adapter. Figure 2. Emulex VFA5 2x10 GbE SFP+ PCIe Adapter for IBM System x Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x...
- Page 4 You can deploy faster and manage less when you implement both Virtual Fabric Adapters (VFAs) and Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) that are developed by Emulex. IBM VFAs and HBAs that are developed by Emulex use the same installation and configuration process, streamlining the effort to get your server running, and saving you valuable time.
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Page 5: Specifications
PCI Express 3.0 x8 host interface Line-rate 10 GbE performance Upgradeable to support converged networking (FCoE and iSCSI) through IBM Features on Demand 2 SFP+ empty cages to support either SFP+ SR or twin-ax copper connections ... - Page 6 2048 Offloaded iSCSI connections iSCSI initiator and concurrent initiator /target modes Multipath I/O OS-neutral INT13 based iSCSIboot and iSCSI crash memory dump support RFC 4171 Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x...
- Page 7 IPV6 (RFC 2460) Supported servers The Emulex VFA5 adapter family is supported in the IBM System x servers that are listed in the following tables. Table 4. Server compatibility, part 1 (M5 systems with v3 processors) Part number...
- Page 8 Emulex VFA5 2x10 GbE SFP+ PCIe Adapter 00JY830 Emulex VFA5 2x10 GbE SFP+ Adapter and FCoE/iSCSI SW None** Emulex VFA5 2x10 GbE SFP+ Integrated Adapter ** The Integrated Adapter is available via configure-to-order (CTO) only. Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x...
- Page 9 The default bandwidth for each vNIC is 2.5 Gbps. Bandwidth for each vNIC can be configured through the IBM RackSwitch from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps, up to a total of 10 Gb per physical port. The vNICs can also be configured to have 0 bandwidth if you must allocate the available bandwidth to fewer than four vNICs per physical port.
- Page 10 FCoE mode: Provides FCoE functionality to the vPort Auto-VLAN mode: Auto VLAN creation for Qbg and IBM VMready environments Only one vPort (vPort 2) per physical port can be bound to FCoE. If FCoE is not desired, vPort 2 can be configured for one of the other modes.
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Page 11: Physical Specifications
Dedicated for Tunnel mode; Shared for other modes iSCSI/FCoE support Physical specifications ML2 adapter (approximate): Height: 69 mm (2.7 in.) Length: 168 mm (6.6 in.) Width: 17 mm (0.7 in.) Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x... -
Page 12: Operating Environment
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64/EM64T SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T VMware vSphere 5.0 (ESXi) VMware vSphere 5.1 (ESXi) VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi) Emulex VFA5 Adapter Family for IBM System x... - Page 13 VMware vSphere 5.1 (ESXi) VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi) For the latest information about the specific versions and service packs that are supported, see IBM ServerProven at http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/. Not all servers support all operating systems and versions. Related publications...
- Page 14 Web sites. The materials at those Web sites are not 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.
- Page 15 (® or ™), indicating US registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks 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...