User guide

NetXtreme II User Guide
September 2013
Broadcom Corporation
Page 230 Data Center Bridging in Windows Server 2012 Document INGSRVT78-CDUM100-R
DATA CENTER BRIDGING IN WINDOWS SERVER 2012
Windows Server 2012 introduces a new way of managing Quality Of Service (QoS) at the OS level. There are two main
aspects of Windows QoS:
• A vendor-independent method for managing DCB settings on NICs, both individually and across an entire domain. The
management interface is provided by Windows PowerShell Cmdlets.
• The ability to tag specific types of L2 networking traffic, such as SMB traffic, so that hardware bandwidth can be
managed using ETS.
All Broadcom Converged Network Adapters that support DCB are capable of interoperating with Windows QoS.
To enable the QoS Windows feature, ensure that the Broadcom device is DCB-capable. Using either CCM or BACS4:
1. Enable Data Center Bridging.
2. Select the NDIS driver, display Advanced properties, and enable the Quality of Service property.
When QoS is enabled, administrative control over DCB-related settings is relinquished to the operating system (that is,
BACS4 can no longer be used for administrative control of the DCB). You can use PowerShell to configure and manage the
QoS feature. Using PowerShell Cmdlets, you can configure various QoS-related parameters, such as traffic classification,
priority flow control, and traffic class throughput scheduling.
For more information on using PowerShell Cmdlets, see the “DCB Windows PowerShell User Scripting Guide” in the
Microsoft Technet Library.
To revert to standard BACS control over the Broadcom DCB feature set, uninstall the Microsoft QOS feature or disable
Quality of Service in the NDIS advance properties page.
NOTE: Broadcom recommends that you do not install the DCB feature if SR-IOV will be used. If you install the DCB
feature, be aware that selecting Enable single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) in Virtual Switch Manager will
force the underlying adapter into a DCB state in which OS DCB configuration will be ignored, and DCB configuration
from BACS will be in effect with the exception that the user-configured Networking Priority value (non-zero) will
not take effect, even though it appears that it is from BACS.