PCIe2 4-port (2x10 Gb FCoE, 2x1 GbE) SFP+ Adapter (FC EL56, CCIN 2B93)

Learn about the specifications and operating system requirements for the feature code (FC) EL56 adapters.

Overview

The PCIe2 4-port (2x10 Gb FCoE, 2x1 GbE) SFP+ Adapter is a PCI Express (PCIe) generation 3, low-profile capable adapter. The adapter has four-ports and is a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapter (CNA). This adapter provides a PCIe 2.0 host bus interface. The adapter is a high-performance adapter that consolidates traffic for networking and Fibre Channel storage. The adapter is optimized for cloud computing, virtualization, storage, and other data center applications. Both FCoE and network interface controller (NIC) functions are available for both FCoE ports. Use of the FCoE requires that you use convergence enhanced Ethernet (CEE) switches. The link aggregation and failover features of the adapter make it suitable for critical network applications that require redundancy and high availability.

The four-port adapter provides two 10 Gb FCoE small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) SR optical ports and two 1 Gb RJ45 Ethernet ports. The two 10 Gb FCoE ports are connected by little connector-type (LC) connectors. Each FCoE port provides Ethernet connectivity with a nominal data rate of 10 Gbps (gigabits per second). Each of the 1 Gb ports provides Ethernet connectivity at a data rate of 1 Gbps and is connected with Ethernet cables. A 10 Mb data rate is not supported. Figure 1 shows the FC EL56 adapter.

Restriction: The 1 Gb Ethernet ports do not support data rates of 10 Mbps (megabits per second).

The adapter provides the following features:

The adapter is a PCIe2 FCoE or NIC network convergence adapter.
The 10 Gb SFP+ ports can function in the NIC or FCoE mode.
The adapter supports the Single Root IO Virtualization (SRIOV) function.
The adapter can function as a Boot adapter.

Figure 1. FC EL56 adapter

Specifications

Item: Description
Adapter FRU number: 00E3498 (Designed to comply with RoHS requirement)
Wrap plug FRU number: 12R9314 (for Fibre LC connector); 10N7405 (for RJ45 connector)
I/O bus architecture: PCIe3 x8
Slot requirement: For details about slot priorities and placement rules, see PCIe adapter placement rules and slot priorities and select the system you are working on.
Cables: SR SFP+ optical fiber cables and Cat5 Ethernet cables
Voltage: 3.3 V, 12 V
Form factor: Short, regular sized bracket, low-profile capable
Maximum number: For details about the maximum number of adapters that are supported, see PCIe adapter placement rules and slot priorities and select the system you are working on.

Operating system or partition requirements

If you are installing a new feature, ensure that you have the software that is required to support the new feature and that you determine whether any prerequisites must be met for this feature and attaching devices. To check for the prerequisites, see IBM® Prerequisite website.

The adapter is supported on the following versions of the operating systems, depending on the system you are using:

AIX®
- AIX 7.1, Technology Level 3, Service Pack 2, or later
- AIX 6.1, Technology Level 9, or later
- AIX 6.1, Technology Level 8, Service Pack 3, or later
Linux
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 6.5, or later, with current maintenance updates available from Red Hat.
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, Service Pack 3, or later, with current maintenance updates available from SUSE.
- For support details, see the Linux Alert website.
IBM i
- IBM i Version 7.2 or later
- IBM i Version 7.1, or later

Last updated: Thu, June 27, 2019