Using Broadcom Advanced Control Suite 4: Broadcom NetXtreme II Network Adapter User Guide
file:///T|/htdocs/NETWORK/BroadCom/71921/NetXtremeII/en/bacs.htm[9/26/2012 3:29:48 PM]
Viewing and Configuring Resource Reservations
NOTES:
Resource Reservation information is only available for Broadcom NetXtreme II adapters and VBD drivers.
Not all offload technologies are available with all adapters.
The Resource Reservations section shows the number of connections allocated to an offload technology: TOE and iSCSI.
TCP Offload Engine (TOE) for accelerating TCP over 1 GbE and 10 GbE.
Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) offload for accelerating network storage access featuring centralized boot
functionality (iSCSI boot).
You can also view the number of unlicensed resources and unallocated resources.
TOE and iSCSI can only be configured on certain adapters and require a license key. License keys are installed on the motherboard
for use with LOMs and are preprogrammed in add-in NICs. TOE is a technology best suited for long-term TCP connections. TOE used
in conjunction with applications that primarily deal with short-term connections may see suboptimal performance when compared to
not using TOE. A short-term connection is a TCP connection that is established for only a few seconds at most, often less than one
second. The overhead of establishing and tearing down the TCP connection with short-term connections may diminish the benefit
that TOE provides. An example of an application that uses short-term connections is a web server that is not behind a load balancer.
TCP connections for HTTP sessions are very short-lived and last only long enough to serve up a web page, after which the TCP
connection is terminated. On the other hand, the same web server behind a load balancer benefits greatly from TOE since the TCP
connections are long-lived between the web server and the load balancer. In contrast, a backup application is very likely to benefit
from TOE since backup applications establish long-term connections between the server and the client.
To view resource reservations
1. Click the name of the Broadcom NetXtreme II system device in the Explorer View pane.
2. From the
Resource Reservations
section, select
the property you want to set.
3. Click
Apply
to confirm the changes to all properties. Click
Reset
to return the properties to their original values.
To configure resource reservations
1. Select
Reserved Resources
for the Offload Configuration setting. Reservations allocate the minimum number of connections
per technology. See
Table 1
for the maximum number of connections available for various configurations.
2. Click
First Come First Served
to allow connections on a first-come-first-served basis to any enabled offload technology (TOE
or iSCSI) as long as resources are available. Otherwise, click
Reserved Resources
to set the maximum number of
connections for each offload technology. This option is not available for 10 Gbps network adapters.
3. If allocating TOE connections, select the
TCP Offload Engine (TOE)
check box and slide the bar or enter a number in the
value box. This is the maximum number of connections available for TOE offload.
4. If allocating iSCSI connections, select the
iSCSI
check box and slide the bar or enter a number in the value box. This is the
maximum number of connections available for iSCSI offload.
5. After the configurations are complete, click
Apply
to save the settings or click
Reset
to revert back to the previous settings.
A chart of the resource allocations appears below the resource configurations.
6. If prompted, reboot the system.
Table 1: Maximum Number of Offload Connections
Offload
First Come First Served Reserved Resources Maximum Number of Connections
TOE only Selected
–
1024
TOE only –
Selected
864
iSCSI only Selected
–
Between 7 and 100
iSCSI only –
Selected
28
Configuring the IP Address for iSCSI Offload
For iSCSI-booted adapters, the Configurations tab is not available and you will not be able to perform this procedure.
To set the IP address of the iSCSI HBA for iSCSI offload
The
iSCSI Management
section of the
Configurations
tab allows you to set the IP address of the iSCSI HBA when using iSCSI
protocol to offload network processing from the CPU to the Broadcom network adapter.
