I/O Virtualization Features - IBM Flex System FC5024D User Manual

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I/O virtualization features

The IBM Flex System FC5024D 4-Port 16Gb FC Adapter supports physical function-based I/O
virtualization to provide data isolation and sharing of the bandwidth resources. For adapter ports, each
port has one Fibre Channel (FC) function as the factory default.
Virtual HBAs (vHBAs) are virtual port partitions that appear as virtual or logical HBAs to the host
operating system. vHBAs are supported on adapter Fibre Channel ports. Multiple vHBAs are not yet
supported, so you cannot create them or delete them from an adapter. The default physical function (PF)
associated with HBA ports is vHBA. HCM discovers and displays all vHBAs as "FC."
The following are limitations of vHBAs:
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Introduction
This feature is enabled by default and persists after driver reloads and system reboots. FEC may
coexist with other Brocade port features such as QOS, TRL, trunking, BBCR, and FAA.
Following are limitations of this feature:
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FEC is supported only HBAs connected to 16 Gbps Brocade switches running FOS 7.1 and
later
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FEC is not supported when on HBA ports operating in direct-attach configurations.
I/O Execution Throttle
This feature allows you to set maximum Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) exchanges for a port to
reduce the number of exchanges on the link and prevent a "queue full" error status back to the
initiator. Use this feature in cases where target devices have a known small queue depth value to
prevent SCSI queue-full conditions. You can configure, clear, and query FCP exchange values for a
specific PCI function of a vHBA using BCU fcpim commands. The configuration persists with
system reboots. For configuration details, refer to the Brocade Adapters Administrator's Guide.
Internet Protocol over Fibre Channel (IPFC) driver
This supports transmission of IP traffic over Fibre Channel links. This driver is only included in the
Linux "noarch" RPM package (brocade_driver_linux_<version>.tar.gz).
Multiple vHBAs per port are not supported (planned for future software release).
Target rate limiting (TRL) and Quality of Service (QoS) are not supported at the vHBA level (only
at the physical port level).
Boot over SAN is not supported at the vHBA level (only at the physical port level).
Features and specifications
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