IBM SAS Connectivity Cars At-A-Glance Manual

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SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv) for IBM BladeCenter
IBM BladeCenter at-a-glance guide
The SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv) for IBM BladeCenter is an expansion card that offers the ideal way to
connect the supported BladeCenter servers to a wide variety of SAS storage devices. Built on proven 3
Gbps, full-duplex, SAS technology, the SAS Connectivity Card can connect to the IBM System Storage
DS3200 from the BladeCenter E or H chassis, and to multiple Disk Storage Modules in the BladeCenter
S. The card routes the pair of SAS channels from the blade's onboard SAS controller to SAS switches
installed in the BladeCenter chassis.
This card is installed into the CIOv slot of the supported blade server. It provides connections to SAS
modules located in bays 3 and 4 of supported BladeCenter chassis. The SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv) is
shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv) for IBM BladeCenter
Did you know?
The adapter is based on the PCI Express bus, which can be thought of as a high-speed serial
replacement of the older technology. Its use offers many benefits, including higher speeds and the ability
to send and receive data at the same time.
When using the CIOv adapter, you can simultaneously use a CFFh adapter to enable more types of I/O to
supported blade servers such as the HS22 when installed in the IBM BladeCenter H chassis. The
innovative design of the CIOv adapter works with the CFFh adapter to support this combination.
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a point-to-point architecture in which all storage devices connect directly to
a SAS port rather than sharing a common bus as traditional SCSI devices do. Point-to-point links increase
data throughput and improve the ability to locate and fix disk failures. SAS architecture solves the parallel
SCSI problems of clock skew and signal degradation at higher signaling rates.
SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv) for IBM BladeCenter 1