3Com 3C990B-TX-M, 3C990BSVR 3C990BSVR Server NIC Features

3C990BSVR Server NIC Features

The 3C990BSVR NIC and accompanying software provide a variety of features that relieve

network congestion and ensure high performance and maximum bandwidth availability.

3Com DynamicAccess Advanced Server software adds intelligence to the NIC to improve

network performance, management, and control. Advanced server features relieve network

congestion and ensure high performance and maximum bandwidth availability.

■Load Balancing groups share the network load over resilient server links (RSLs) that

keep trafﬁc ﬂowing even if a NIC in a group is temporarily disconnected.

■Self-Healing Drivers (SHDs) detect common error conditions and correct them while

maintaining server link performance.

■Failover fault tolerance provides a backup solution in the event of a NIC failure.

■VLANs (IEEE 802.1Q multiple virtual LANs) let you divide network segments into

logical partitions that simplify conﬁguration changes, organize work groups

efﬁciently, help to control trafﬁc, and provide extra security.

■Trafﬁc Prioritization (IEEE 802.1p/Q) ensures that business-critical and delay-sensitive

trafﬁc (such as multimedia applications) has priority over normal data.

Load balancing maximizes bandwidth at the server through the use of multiple parallel

resilient server links (RSLs) that share the network load as shown in the next ﬁgure.

An RSL consists of two or more NICs that form a virtual NIC. Each virtual NIC has multiple

physical NICs bound to it, forming a group. Each NIC in a group uses the same protocols

and frame types. One NIC is designated the primary NIC and the others secondary NICs.

Self-healing drivers (SHDs) are automatically installed with the NIC software, and work

together with RSLs to maintain the network connection. An SHD monitors the NIC

continuously for error conditions and makes corrections. These corrections can include

resetting the NIC, rebuilding software data structures, temporarily disabling features, or

transferring all network trafﬁc to secondary NICs (termed a failover event). An SHD can

also continuously monitor the status of the physical NICs in a virtual NIC group before and

after failover. Errors and actions are reported to the system console and to the system log

ﬁle. Error threshold values can be conﬁgured at any time.

NOTE: Advanced server features are available for the 3C990BSVR server NIC only.

They are not available for the 3C990B-TX-M client NIC. Only system administrators

should conﬁgure these features.

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Clients

Bidirectional

Server

Primary Secondaries

Transmit-only

Primary Secondaries

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