Chapter 5. IBM BladeCenter HX5 209The expansion blade has the following features: Support for PCIe 2.0 adapters in an expansion bladeThe expansion blade lets you install one or two standard form factor PCIe 2.0 adaptercards in a BladeCenter environment, enabling the use of specialized adapters or adaptersthat otherwise are not available to BladeCenter clients. Each of the two adapters canconsume up to 75 W. Ability to stack up to four expansion blades on a single base bladeYou can attach up to two, three, or four expansion blades (depending on the attachedserver), therefore, maintaining the BladeCenter density advantage while still giving you theoption to install PCIe cards as needed without the need for each expansion blade havingto be attached to a server and the added complexity and cost that brings. The firstexpansion blade connects to the server blade using the CFFh expansion slot of the serverblade. The second expansion blade attaches to the CFFh connector on the first expansionblade, and so on. The following maximums are for the attached expansion blades:Single-node HX5: Up to three expansion bladesTwo-node HX5: Up to two expansion blades CFFh slot still availableThe CFFh expansion connector is accessible on the topmost expansion blade, even withfour expansion blades attached. This design lets you maintain the integrated networkingcapabilities of the blade server when it is installed in a BladeCenter S, H, or HT chassis.For details about the supported PCI Express adapter cards, see the IBM Redbooksat-a-glance guide, IBM BladeCenter PCI Express Gen 2 Expansion Blade, TIPS0783, whichis available at this website:http://www.ibm.com/redbooks/abstracts/tips0783.html5.13 I/O expansion cardsThe HX5 type 7872 connects to a wide variety of networks and fabrics by installing theappropriate I/O expansion card. Supported networks and fabrics include 1 Gb and 10 GbEthernet, 4 Gb and 8 Gb Fibre Channel, SAS, and InfiniBand.The HX5 blade server with an I/O expansion card is installed in a supported BladeCenterchassis complete with switch modules (or pass-through) that are compatible with the I/Oexpansion card in each blade. The HX5 supports two types of I/O expansion cards: the CIOvand the CFFh form factor cards.5.13.1 CIOvThe CIOv I/O expansion connector provides I/O connections through the midplane of thechassis to modules located in bays 3 and 4 of a supported BladeCenter chassis. The CIOvslot is a second-generation PCI Express 2.0 x8 slot. A maximum of one CIOv I/O expansioncard is supported per HX5. A CIOv I/O expansion card can be installed on a blade server atthe same time that a CFFh I/O expansion card is installed in the blade.MAX5 support: The HX5 with an attached MAX5 does not also support the attachmentof the PCI Express Gen 2 Expansion Blade.
