Hardware Reference
47
C613-03020-00 REV K
PCI Accelerator Cards (PACs)
PCI Accelerator Cards (PACs) provide additional processing features or
performance, but do not add extra physical interfaces to the switch. A PAC can
be installed in the dedicated PAC slot on all Rapier switches except the Rapier
48, Rapier 48
i
, Rapier G6, and Rapier G6F.
PACs should only be installed by authorised service personnel. Unauthorised
opening of the switch’s lid may cause danger of injury from electric shock,
damage to the switch, and invalidation of the product warranty.
Two PACs are available:
■
AT-AR060 EPAC, Encryption PAC.
■
AT-AR061 ECPAC, Encryption/Compression PAC.
See “
Restricted Procedures
” on page 39 for more information on the PAC
installation procedure.
How PACs work
PACs provide Rapier switches with high performance hardware-based
encryption and/or compression services. PACs have a DMA slave processor,
which operates independently of the base system. This processor is responsible
for the transfer of data between the base system and the PAC, and the control
of local high speed encryption and compression data processing devices.
This architecture allows data encoding to be performed off-line without
involving the base switch processor, thereby maximising PAC performance
while at the same time minimising impact on the switch.
The PAC is a single card.
Figure 24
shows the layout of the board for an
AT-AR061 ECPAC.
Figure 24: Location of main components on the AT-AR061 ECPAC card.
PAC Connector
Holes for PAC fasteners
Hole for PAC fastner
PAC
