94 IBM BladeCenter PS703 and PS704 Technical Overview and Introduction Each operating system partition detects the virtual local area network (VLAN) switch as anEthernet adapter without the physical link properties and asynchronous data transmitoperations.Any virtual Ethernet can also have connectivity outside of the server if a layer-2 bridge to aphysical Ethernet adapter is configured in a VIOS partition (see 3.4.4, “VIOS” on page 108 formore details about shared Ethernet). The device configured is know as a Shared EthernetAdapter or SEA.Virtual Fibre ChannelA virtual Fibre Channel adapter is a virtual adapter that provides client logical partitions with aFibre Channel connection to a storage area network through the VIOS logical partition. TheVIOS logical partition provides the connection between the virtual Fibre Channel adapters onthe VIOS logical partition and the physical Fibre Channel adapters on the managed system.NPIV is a standard technology for Fibre Channel networks. It enables you to connect multiplelogical partitions to one physical port of a physical Fibre Channel adapter. Each logicalpartition is identified by a unique WWPN, which means that you can connect each logicalpartition to independent physical storage on a SAN.You can only configure virtual Fibre Channel adapters on client logical partitions that run thefollowing operating systems: AIX 6.1 Technology Level 2, or later AIX 5.3 Technology Level 9, or later IBM i version 6.1.1, 7.1, or later SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, or later RHEL 5.5, 6, or laterFor details on which expansion cards support NPIV see 3.4.9, “N_Port ID Virtualization(NPIV)” on page 116.Systems that are managed by the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) or a SystemsDirector Management Console (SDMC) can dynamically add and remove virtual FibreChannel adapters from logical partitions. Figure 3-1 on page 95 depicts the connectionsbetween the client partition virtual Fibre Channel adapters and the external storage.Note: Virtual Ethernet is based on the IEEE 802.1Q VLAN standard. No physical I/Oadapter is required when creating a VLAN connection between partitions, and no access toan outside network is required for inter-partition communication.Note: To enable NPIV on a managed system, VIOS at version 2.1 or later is required.NPIV is only supported on 8 Gb Fibre Channel and Converged Network (FCoE) adapterson POWER-based systems.
