Lenovo 3200 Series, Installation Manual

Page: 90 / 132

8200 Series Converged Network Adapter and 3200 Series Intelligent Ethernet Adapter Page
72
Q: How is NPAR different from SR-IOV?
Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) is an industry-developed specification that identifies how a single
PCI device can be partitioned and shared natively with multiple OSs on the same physical host. NPAR is
similar to SR-IOV in that both allow partitioning a physical port into multiple partitions. With NPAR, the
physical port is partitioned into multiple physical PCIe functions. However, in the case of SR-IOV, the
physical port is partitioned into multiple virtual PCIe functions. This difference in partitioning allows NPAR
to be deployed in both bare metal (non-virtualized) OSs and virtualized OSs. In contrast, SR-IOV is
primarily targeted towards virtualized platforms.
To deploy SR-IOV today, you will need to ensure a minimum level of infrastructure (server hardware and
OS) support for SR-IOV. Whereas NPAR is available today with the 8200 and 3200 Series Adapters and
supported with all major OSs, including Windows and Linux, without any specific minimum server
hardware or OS support requirements, SR-IOV is not currently supported on Windows.
Q: How does NPAR allow me to use fewer adapters?
With NPAR, users can create up to eight virtual ports per QLogic Adapter. Each virtual port can be a NIC,
FCoE, or iSCSI port with minimum guaranteed bandwidth. This means a single adapter can now replace
multiple 1GbE NICs, Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters, and iSCSI Host Bus Adapters.
Q: How many MAC addresses are supported by my adapter?
Eight MAC addresses are supported in total—one for each physical function.
Q: What does “switch-agnostic” mean? What are the benefits?
Switch-agnostic means that the NPAR feature works when the 8200 and 3200 Series Adapters are
connected to a 10GbE switch. This implementation gives you broad interoperability in your environment
and more freedom when choosing your 10GbE switch.
Q: What’s the difference between a physical function and a virtual function?
Physical functions are full-featured PCIe functions that operate like normal PCI physical devices in terms of
discovery, configuration, and management. Virtual functions are “lightweight” (minimized functionality
support) PCIe functions that are derived from the physical PCIe functions.
Q: Is NPAR included when I purchase my adapter?
Yes. Full NPAR functionality comes with your purchase. There are no additional licensing fees incurred.
Q: What protocols are supported with NPAR?
The function types supported on the virtual ports are TCP/IP (NIC), iSCSI, and FCoE.
Q: How is the QoS set? How does the bandwidth allocation work? What tools are used to set
bandwidth?
The QoS parameter setting is supported from a minimum bandwidth of 100Mbps to 10Gbps. The settings
can be allocated in blocks of 100Mbps increments (as a percentage of the total bandwidth).
There are three tools that users can employ to configure NPAR functionality:
• Pre-boot utility
• QLogic’s QConvergeConsole management tool (GUI and CLI)
• Microsoft Windows
®
properties pages
Q: Is one virtual port’s unused bandwidth available for use by other active virtual ports?
Yes. The minimum settings are bandwidth guarantees, specified as a percentage of the link speed. If one
or more virtual ports are not consuming their full allotment, that bandwidth can be temporarily consumed by
other virtual ports if they need more than their guaranteed allotment.
Q: What OSs are supported with NPAR?
Currently, the following OS support is available: Microsoft Windows Server
™
2008/2008 SP2/2008 R2; Red
Hat Linux
®
5.5, 6.0; Novell
®
SLES 10 SP3, SLES 11 SP1. For the latest list of supported operating systems,
please check the QLogic Web site.