IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System Products and Technology

170 IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System Products and Technology

For a complete description of the features and capabilities of VMware ESX Server, see:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/esx/

5.2.10 Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter

Some models of the x240 include an Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter built into the

system board. Table 5-2 on page 144 lists what models of the x240 include the Embedded 10

Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter. Each x240 model that includes the embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric

Adapter also has the Compute Node Fabric Connector installed in I/O connector 1. The

Compute Node Fabric Connector is physically screwed onto the system board, and provides

connectivity to the Enterprise Chassis midplane.

Models without the Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter do not include any other Ethernet

connections to the Enterprise Chassis midplane. For those models, an I/O adapter must be

installed in either I/O connector 1 or I/O connector 2. This adapter provides network

connectivity between the server and the chassis midplane, and ultimately to the network

switches.

Figure 5-19 shows the Compute Node Fabric Connector.

Figure 5-19 The Compute Node Fabric Connector

The Compute Node Fabric Connector enables Port 1 on the Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric

Adapter to be routed to I/O module bay 1. Similarly, port 2 can be routed to I/O module bay 2.

The Compute Node Fabric Connector can be unscrewed and removed, if required, to allow

the installation of an I/O adapter on I/O connector 1.

The Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter is based on the Emulex BladeEngine 3, which is

a single-chip, dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) Ethernet Controller. The Embedded 10

Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter includes these features:

򐂰 PCI-Express Gen2 x8 host bus interface

򐂰 Supports multiple Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC) functions

򐂰 TCP/IP offload Engine (TOE enabled)

򐂰 SRIOV capable

򐂰 RDMA over TCP/IP capable

򐂰 iSCSI and FCoE upgrade offering using FoD

Restriction: If the ServeRAID M5115 SAS/SATA Controller is installed, the IBM USB

Memory Key for VMware Hypervisor cannot be installed.

Restriction: If I/O connector 1 has the Embedded 10 Gb Virtual Fabric Adapter installed,

only I/O connector 2 is available for the installation of additional I/O adapters.