Lenovo G8264 Product Manual page 18

All active links
Traffic load balanced across all links using Layer 3 ECMP
64 RackSwitch G8052 Leaf Switches for 2560 non-blocking 1 GbE ports
48x 10/100/1000 server-facing ports each
4x 10GBASE-SR fiber uplinks each
Four RackSwitch G8264 spine switches for non-blocking core
Figure 6 shows the 2560-node logical design.
Figure 6. The 2560-node logical design
Virtual Fabric configuration with System x servers using the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters
The following example describes an Virtual Fabric implementation:
Virtual Fabric for System x is built using industry standards and is the ideal solution for customers that require
more than two NICs per server. Over the past couple of years many clients have seen their I/O requirements
per server increase anywhere from 4 to 6 to 8 or even more NICs per server, especially with the adoption of
virtualization. What Virtual Fabric does is provide clients with the ability to leverage a virtual NIC approach
leveraging 10 Gb Ethernet technology to help reduce cost and complexity while also achieving better
performance and more flexibility. It provides the following benefits:
Reduced costs
Acquisition and operating by using fewer adapters, cables, and upstream switch ports.
Reduced complexity
Fewer items to manage, based standards, making management easier with the addition of high
availability and better security.
Better performance
A significant amount more I/O bandwidth per server and lower latency than traditional 1 Gb Ethernet.
Flexibility
The ability to carve up a dual-port 10 Gb adapter into 4 - 8 virtual NICs and create virtual pipes
between the adapter and switch for higher availability and security. Not only can customers
dynamically allocate I/O bandwidth to each virtual NIC, Virtual Fabric also provides the ability to
change those allocations as needed. For example, a customer might have one configuration for
workload during the day and another during the evenings. Virtual Fabric has the ability to make those
changes on the fly without downtime.
Virtual Fabric is designed in partnership with Emulex. This solution requires the following components:
Emulex 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapters for System x
For more details, see Emulex 10Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter II and III Family for System x , TIPS0844 at:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0844.html
RackSwitch G8264 18