70 Net finity 3500 -M20 – T ype 8657 Mod els 21 Y, 2 2Y, 31Y, 32Y ,
Fa ilover for redundant E the rn et
The IBM Netfinity 10/100 Ethernet Adapter or the IBM
10/100 E the rn et P CI fam il y of ad ap te r s are opti on al redu n-
dant network interface cards (N IC adapter) that you can
install in the server. If you install this NIC adapter and con-
nect it to the same logical segment as the primary Ethernet
con t ro ll er, you can con fig ur e the se rv er to su pp or t a
failover
function. You can configure either the integrated Ethernet
controller or the NIC adapter as the primary Ethernet con-
troller. In failover mode, if the primary Ethernet controller
detects a lin k failure, all Ethernet traffic associated with it is
switched to the redundant (secondary) controller. This
switching occurs without any user intervention. When the
primary link is restored to an operational state, the Ethernet
traffic switches ba ck to the primary Ethernet controller.
High Performance Ethernet Modes
The Ethernet controller supports optional modes , such as
teaming, priority packets, and virtual LANs, which provide
higher performance and through put for the server.
Teaming Mode:
T he Ethe r ne t co ntro ller pro vi de s
optio ns, called
teaming options
. These opti ons i ncrease
throughput and fault tolerance when running with Windows
NT 4.0 or NetWare 4.1x or later.
•Adapter fault tolerance (AFT) provides automatic
red un da ncy for th e ad ap te r. I f t he p rim ar y adap te r fai l s,
the secondary adapter takes over. Adapter fault toler-
ance supports from 2 to 4 ad apters per team.
•Adaptive load balancing (ALB ) allows you to balance
the tr a nsm is si on data f lo w am on g 2 t o 4 adap te r s. ALB
also includes the AFT option. You can use ALB with
any 100BASE-TX switch.
•Cisco Fast EtherChannel (FEC) creates a team of 2
to 4 adap ters to increase tra nsmission and reception
throughput. FEC also includes the AFT option. You
can onl y use FE C wi th a switch that has FEC ca pabi lity.
Teaming requires you to install at least one additional Ether-
net adapter. For additional inf o rmatio n about the teaming
modes, r efe r to the documen tation that c omes with these
addit iona l adap ters.
Priority Pack et M ode:
Prior ity Packet is a traffic-priori ti-
zation utility that enables you to set up fi lters to pr ocess
high-priority traffic before normal traffic. You can send infor-
mation from critical nodes or applications with an indicated
priority. Because you set this priority at the host or entry
point of the network, the networ k devi ces ca n base forward-
ing decisions on priority information def ine d in th e packet.
Priority Packet information is available on the IBM Network-
ing Web site at: http://www.ibm.com/networking/support.
Pri ority Packet prioriti zes traffic based on priority filter s.
These are parameters you as sign to outgoin g (tr ansmit)
packets. Using the Priority Filter Wizard, you can set up pre-
defined or custom priority filters based on a node (MAC)
address, Ethernet type, or by various properties of the proto-
col and port. Priority Packet provides two different methods