Fujitsu V3.1 manual Virtual addresses, Special connection blade for blade server

2 Virtual-IO Manager - Introduction

This chapter provides a general introduction to the concept of the Virtual-IO Manager (VIOM).

2.1Virtual addresses

Physical MAC addresses and WWN addresses are stored on the network card or in the host bus adapter (HBA) of a server blade or PRIMERGY rack server. If a server blade or PRIMERGY rack server has to be exchanged or the operating system and/or the application has to be started on another server, usually the LAN or SAN network has to be reconfigured. This means that whilst the MAC address and the WWN addresses identify a physical server blade, several administrators have to be involved.

To separate the administration areas from each other, it is necessary to keep the I/O parameters (MAC and WWN) outwardly constant.

Using virtual addresses instead of the MAC addresses or WWN addresses stored on the NIC (network interface card) or in the HBA, the addressing remains constant even when a server blade is exchanged at the slot or a PRIMERGY rack server is replaced by another one.

2.2Special connection blade for blade server

Up to now, blade servers have been used essentially to connect the LAN (Local Area Network) and Fibre Channel ports (FC ports) of individual server blades to the LAN and SAN networks (SAN - Storage Area Network) using switch blades or pass-thru blades, which are inserted in the blade chassis. It is the responsibility of the LAN or SAN administrators to manage these switches. This leads to an overlap of the different administration areas.

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