Modes Of Operation - Lenovo Emulex VFA5.2 Product Manual

Support for servers with Intel Xeon v2 processors
Table 5. Support for servers with Intel Xeon v2 processors
Part
number Description
00AG570 Emulex VFA5.2 2x10 GbE SFP+ PCIe Adapter
00AG580 Emulex VFA5.2 2x10 GbE SFP+ Adapter and FCoE/iSCSI SW
00AG560 Emulex VFA5.2 ML2 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter
01CV770 Emulex VFA5.2 ML2 2x10 GbE SFP+ Adapter and FCoE/iSCSI
SW

Modes of operation

The Emulex VFA5.2 adapter family supports three types of virtual NIC (vNIC) operating modes, and a
physical NIC (pNIC) operating mode. This support is built into the adapter:
Virtual Fabric Mode (also known as vNIC1 mode)
Virtual Fabric Mode works only with RackSwitch™ G8124E, G8264CS, G8264, G8264T top-of-rack
switches. In this mode, the Emulex adapter communicates with the switch to obtain vNIC
parameters (using DCBX). A special tag is added within each data packet and is later removed by
the NIC or switch for each vNIC group to maintain separation of the virtual data paths.
In vNIC mode, each physical port is divided into four virtual ports for a maximum of eight virtual
NICs per adapter. The default bandwidth for each vNIC is 2.5 Gbps. Bandwidth for each vNIC can
be configured through the 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 zero bandwidth if you must allocate the
available bandwidth to fewer than four vNICs per physical port. In Virtual Fabric Mode, you can
change the bandwidth allocations through the switch user interfaces without requiring a reboot of
the server.
vNIC bandwidth allocation and metering are performed by both the switch and the VFA. In such a
case, a bidirectional virtual channel of an assigned bandwidth is established between them for
every defined vNIC.
Switch Independent Mode (also known as vNIC2 mode)
In Switch Independent Mode, the adapter works with any 10 Gb Ethernet switch. Switch
Independent Mode offers the same capabilities as Virtual Fabric Mode in terms of the number of
vNICs and the bandwidth each can be configured to have. Switch Independent Mode extends the
existing customer VLANs to the virtual NIC interfaces. The IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tag is essential to the
separation of the vNIC groups by the NIC adapter or driver and the switch. The VLAN tags are
added to the packet by the applications or drivers at each endpoint rather than by the switch.
Emulex VFA5.2 Adapter Family for System x
N N N N N N
N N N N N N
N N N N N N
N N N N N N
Y Y
Y Y
Y Y
N Y
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