Specifications

78 IBM Power 770 and 780 Technical Overview and Introduction

For more information about FCoE, read An Introduction to Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and

Fibre Channel over Convergence Enhanced Ethernet, REDP-4493.

IBM offers a 10 Gb FCoE PCIe Dual Port adapter (#5708). This is a high-performance 10 Gb

dual port PCIe Converged Network Adapter (CNA) utilizing SR optics. Each port can provide

Network Interface Card (NIC) traffic and Fibre Channel functions simultaneously. It is

supported on AIX and Linux for FC and Ethernet.

2.8.11 InfiniBand Host Channel adapter

The InfiniBand Architecture (IBA) is an industry-standard architecture for server I/O and

inter-server communication. It was developed by the InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) to

provide the levels of reliability, availability, performance, and scalability necessary for present

and future server systems with levels significantly better than can be achieved by using

bus-oriented I/O structures.

InfiniBand (IB) is an open set of interconnect standards and specifications. The main IB

specification has been published by the InfiniBand Trade Association and is available at:

http://www.infinibandta.org/

InfiniBand is based on a switched fabric architecture of serial point-to-point links, where these

IB links can be connected to either host channel adapters (HCAs), used primarily in servers,

or to target channel adapters (TCAs), used primarily in storage subsystems.

The InfiniBand physical connection consists of multiple byte lanes. Each individual byte lane

is a four-wire, 2.5, 5.0, or 10.0 Gbps bidirectional connection. Combinations of link width and

byte-lane speed allow for overall link speeds from 2.5 Gbps to 120 Gbps. The architecture

defines a layered hardware protocol, as well as a software layer to manage initialization and

the communication between devices. Each link can support multiple transport services for

reliability and multiple prioritized virtual communication channels.

For more information about InfiniBand, read HPC Clusters Using InfiniBand on IBM Power

Systems Servers, SG24-7767.

IBM offers the GX++ 12X DDR Adapter (#1808) that plugs into the system backplane (GX++

slot). There are two GX++ slots in each CEC enclosure. By attaching a 12X to 4X converter

cable (#1828), an IB switch can be attached.

Table 2-26 lists the available InfiniBand adapters.

Table 2-26 Available Fibre Channel adapters

2.8.12 Asynchronous adapter

Asynchronous PCI adapters provide connection of asynchronous EIA-232 or RS-422

devices.

Recent PowerHA releases no longer support heartbeats over serial connections.

Feature

code

CCIN Adapter description Slot Size OS

support

#1808 GX++ 12X DDR adapter, Dual-port GX++ A, L

#5285

a. Requires PCIe Gen2 full-high slot

2-Port 4X IB QDR adapter 40 Gb PCIe Full high A, L