3C990BSVR Server NIC Features93C990BSVR Server NIC FeaturesThe 3C990BSVR NIC and accompanying software provide a variety of features that relievenetwork congestion and ensure high performance and maximum bandwidth availability.3Com DynamicAccess Advanced Server Features3Com DynamicAccess Advanced Server software adds intelligence to the NIC to improvenetwork performance, management, and control. Advanced server features relieve networkcongestion and ensure high performance and maximum bandwidth availability. Load Balancing groups share the network load over resilient server links (RSLs) thatkeep traffic flowing even if a NIC in a group is temporarily disconnected. Self-Healing Drivers (SHDs) detect common error conditions and correct them whilemaintaining 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 intological partitions that simplify configuration changes, organize work groupsefficiently, help to control traffic, and provide extra security. Traffic Prioritization (IEEE 802.1p/Q) ensures that business-critical and delay-sensitivetraffic (such as multimedia applications) has priority over normal data.Load BalancingLoad balancing maximizes bandwidth at the server through the use of multiple parallelresilient 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 multiplephysical NICs bound to it, forming a group. Each NIC in a group uses the same protocolsand frame types. One NIC is designated the primary NIC and the others secondary NICs.Self-Healing DriversSelf-healing drivers (SHDs) are automatically installed with the NIC software, and worktogether with RSLs to maintain the network connection. An SHD monitors the NICcontinuously for error conditions and makes corrections. These corrections can includeresetting the NIC, rebuilding software data structures, temporarily disabling features, ortransferring all network traffic to secondary NICs (termed a failover event). An SHD canalso continuously monitor the status of the physical NICs in a virtual NIC group before andafter failover. Errors and actions are reported to the system console and to the system logfile. 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 administratorsshould configure these features.® ®ClientsBidirectionalServerPrimary SecondariesTransmit-onlyPrimary SecondariesSwitch
