IBM Z10 EC manual Feature Infrastructure Ports per, Port density or granularity

Choose the OSA-Express3 features that best meet your

business requirements.

To meet the demands of your applications, provide granu- larity, facilitate redundant paths, and satisfy your infra- structure requirements, there are fi ve features from which to choose. In the 10 GbE environment, Short Reach (SR) is being offered for the fi rst time.

Feature	Infrastructure	Ports per
		Feature
OSA-Express3 GbE LX	Single mode fiber	4
OSA-Express3 10 GbE LR	Single mode fiber	2
OSA-Express3 GbE SX	Multimode fiber	4
OSA-Express3 10 GbE SR	Multimode fiber	2
OSA-Express3 1000BASE-T	Copper	4

Note that software PTFs or a new release may be required (depending on CHPID type) to support all ports.

OSA-Express3 for reduced latency and improved throughput

To help reduce latency, the OSA-Express3 features now have an Ethernet hardware data router; what was previ- ously done in fi rmware (packet construction, inspection, and routing) is now performed in hardware. With direct memory access, packets fl ow directly from host memory to the LAN without fi rmware intervention. OSA-Express3 is also designed to help reduce the round-trip networking time between systems. Up to a 45% reduction in latency at the TCP/IP application layer has been measured.

The OSA-Express3 features are also designed to improve throughput for standard frames (1492 byte) and jumbo frames (8992 byte) to help satisfy the bandwidth require- ments of your applications. Up to a 4x improvement has been measured (compared to OSA-Express2).

The above statements are based on OSA-Express3 perfor- mance measurements performed in a laboratory environ- ment on a System z10 and do not represent actual fi eld measurements. Results may vary.

Port density or granularity

The OSA-Express3 features have Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI-E) adapters. The previous table identifi es whether the feature has two or four ports for LAN connectivity. Select the density that best meets your busi- ness requirements. Doubling the port density on a single feature helps to reduce the number of I/O slots required for high-speed connectivity to the Local Area Network.

The OSA-Express3 10 GbE features support Long Reach (LR) using 9 micron single mode fi ber optic cabling and Short Reach (SR) using 50 or 62.5 micron multimode

fiber optic cabling. The connector is new; it is now the small form factor, LC Duplex connector. Previously the SC Duplex connector was supported for LR. The LC Duplex connector is common with FICON, ISC-3, and OSA- Express2 Gigabit Ethernet LX and SX.

The OSA-Express3 features are exclusive to System z10.

There are operating system dependencies for exploitation of two ports in OSD mode per PCI-E adapter. Whether it is a 2-port or a 4-port feature, only one of the ports will be visible on a PCI-E adapter if operating system exploitation updates are not installed.

OSA-Express3 Ethernet features – Summary of benefits

OSA-Express3 10 GbE LR (single mode fi ber), 10 GbE SR (multimode fi ber), GbE LX (single mode fi ber), GbE SX (multimode fi ber), and 1000BASE-T (copper) are designed for use in high-speed enterprise backbones, for local area network connectivity between campuses, to connect server farms to System z10, and to consolidate fi le servers

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