bandwidth settings can exceed a total of 10Gb, allowing ports to take advantage of unused bandwidth when available.

IMPORTANT: In Flex-10 environments, four FlexNICs must share a single 10Gb link or 20Gb link when using Flex-10/20 Adapters together with FlexFabric-20/40 F8 modules. Each FlexNIC is allocated a guaranteed portion of that 10Gb or 20Gb link's bandwidth and can transmit up to 10Gb or 20Gb. The same rules for setting different bandwidths apply.

A Flex-10 capable NIC (embedded Ethernet or mezzanine card) is seen as four FlexNICs per 10Gb port if that NIC is directly connected to an HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 or FlexFabric module. Four FlexNICs are indicated when connected to an empty interconnect bay because it is assumed that an HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 or FlexFabric module will be installed in that bay. If a Flex-10-capable NIC is connected to a Virtual Connect interconnect module that does not support Flex-10 or a non-Virtual Connect interconnect module, that NIC is seen as only one Ethernet device per physical port.

The following table shows an example of how a BL495c Flex-10 embedded dual port NIC would be presented when connected to different interconnects. For more information about mapping between servers and interconnect bays, see the HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure documentation on the HP website (http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/solutions/info-library/index.aspx?cat=bladesy stem).

Connected toNumber of FlexNICs presented to

 

the host per port

 

 

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric-20/40

4

F8 Module

 

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric

4

10Gb/24-port Module

 

HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb

4

Ethernet Module

 

HP Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D

4

Module

 

HP GbE2c Ethernet Blade Switch

2

Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3120

2

HP 10GbE Pass-Thru Module

2

Empty interconnect bay

4

SR-IOV

Beginning with VC 4.10, VC supports SR-IOV by automatically allocating all Virtual Functions (VFs) to the third Physical Function (PF) on each port of the server. VC enables SR-IOV on certain BLOMs, mezzanine cards for Gen8 servers, and LOMs for G7 servers. SR-IOV is not enabled on Integrity servers. For a complete list of adapters and operating systems VC supports, see the "Prerequisites" section of the HP Virtual Connect Version 4.31 Release Notes.

When SR-IOV VFs are allocated to a connection, an event is logged to the VCM system log. The VCM system log indicates that SR-IOV has been enabled. Example:

2012-11-07T09:33:21-06:00 VCEFXTW210600GN vcm_svr: [PRO::6043:Info] SR-IOVVirtual Functions added : Profile: p_sriov, Enet connection: 5, Number VFs: 64

When an existing domain is upgraded to VC 4.10, you must power cycle the server to enable SR-IOV support. During an upgrade, when a profile is detected that needs SR-IOV support and the server is powered on, an event is logged to the VCM system log showing the profile name and the server bay. Example:

Virtual Connect server profiles 167