SysKonnect SK-98xx V2.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Advanced Power Management / Wake on LAN 37
Advanced Power Management / Wake on LAN
The SysKonnect SK-9821 V2.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter supports power manage ment as de-
fined in the PCI Bus Power Management Interface Specification V1.1 and Network Device
Class Power Management Reference Specification V2.0. The power management features
are implemented according to the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification
V2.0.
The SysKonnect SK-9821 V2.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter utiliz es an auxiliary power supply to
keep some parts running. This setting enables the PCI network device to “Wake on LAN”.
The Wake on LAN functionality uses three mechanisms to create a wake up event:
• OnNow Pattern Match Detect
Incoming packets are compared to up to seven patterns stored in a pattern matching
table. A match causes a wake up event.
• Magic PacketTM Detect
The incoming data stream is searched for a so-called magic pack et frame that consists of
6 bytes of 0xFF followed by 16 iterations of the adapter’s MAC address. If this sequence
is found, a wake up event is created.
• Link Change Detect
Any change of the link status will cause a wake up event.
Wake on LAN is supported by Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Reliability
The SysKonnect SK-98xx V2.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter comes with a variety of reliability
features. They aim at maintaining a connection as long as possible. This is reached by redun-
dant or grouped links (link aggregation). The on-board sensors and driver functions help to
monitor the health of adapters and their ports enabling pro-active network mana gement. The
reliability features are described in the following sections.

Link Aggregation

Link aggregation or trunking is a method of combining physical ne twork links into a single log-
ical link for increased bandwidth. With link aggregation, it is possible to incr ease the capacity
and availability of the communications channel between devices (both switches and end sta-
tions) using existing Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet technolog y. Two or more Gigabit Eth-
ernet connections are combined into a team in order to increase the bandwidth capability and
to create resilient and redundant links. A set of multiple parallel physical link s between two
devices is grouped together to form a single logical link. Lin k aggregation offers an efficient
and low-cost solution to increase bandwidth between server and switch. Another advantage it
provides is that if a connection fails completely the remaining links can take over the traffic
and thus replace the broken line.
Link aggregation also provides load balancing where the processing and communications ac-
tivity is distributed across several links so that no single li nk is overwhelmed.
By taking multiple LAN connections and treating them as a unified, ag gregated link, practical
benefits can be achieved in many applications.