IBM 90Y3558 User Manual
IBM Flex System CN4054/CN4054R 10Gb Virtual Fabric Adapters and EN4054 4-port 10GbE Adapter
4
CN4054 / CN4054R modes of operation
The CN4054 and CN4054R 10Gb Virtual Fabric Adapters support two vNIC modes of operation in
addition to pNIC mode:
IBM Virtual Fabric Mode. This mode only works in conjunction with any of the following switches
installed in the chassis:
IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric EN4093 10Gb Scalable Switch
In this mode, the adapter communicates with the switch module to obtain vNIC parameters (using
DCBX). Also, a special tag within each data packet is added and later removed by the NIC and switch
for each vNIC group to maintain separation of the virtual channels.
In vNIC mode, each physical port is divided into four virtual ports, providing a total of 16 virtual NICs
In vNIC mode, each physical port is divided into four virtual ports, providing a total of 16 virtual NICs
per adapter. The default bandwidth for each vNIC is 2.5 Gbps. Bandwidth for each vNIC can be
configured at the switch from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps, up to a total of 10 Gb per physical port. The
vNICs can also be configured to have 0 bandwidth if you must allocate the available bandwidth to
fewer than eight vNICs. In IBM Virtual Fabric Mode, you can change the bandwidth allocations
through the switch user interfaces without requiring a reboot of the server.
When storage protocols are enabled on the adapter (using CN4054 Virtual Fabric Adapter Upgrade,
When storage protocols are enabled on the adapter (using CN4054 Virtual Fabric Adapter Upgrade,
90Y3558), six ports are Ethernet, and two ports are either iSCSI or FCoE
Switch Independent Mode, where the adapter works with the following switches:
Switch Independent Mode, where the adapter works with the following switches:
Cisco Nexus B22 Fabric Extender for IBM Flex System
IBM Flex System EN4023 10Gb Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric CN4093 10Gb Converged Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric EN4093 10Gb Scalable Switch
IBM Flex System Fabric SI4093 System Interconnect Module
IBM Flex System EN4091 10Gb Ethernet Pass-thru and a top-of-rack (TOR) switch
Switch Independent Mode offers the same capabilities as IBM Virtual Fabric Mode in terms of the
number of vNICs and the bandwidth that each can be configured to have. However, 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 end station
rather than by the switch.
In pNIC mode, the expansion card can operate as a standard 10 Gbps or 1 Gbps 4-port Ethernet
In pNIC mode, the expansion card can operate as a standard 10 Gbps or 1 Gbps 4-port Ethernet
expansion card. When in pNIC mode, the expansion card functions with all supported I/O modules.
In pNIC mode, the adapter with the CN4054 Virtual Fabric Adapter Upgrade, 90Y3558, applied
In pNIC mode, the adapter with the CN4054 Virtual Fabric Adapter Upgrade, 90Y3558, applied
operates in traditional Converged Network Adapter (CNA) mode with four ports of Ethernet and four
ports of storage (iSCSI or FCoE) available to the operating system.