Author
Updated
9 Aug 2024Form Number
LP1433PDF size
27 pages, 577 KBAbstract
The ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 and E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 network adapters improve application efficiency and network performance with innovative and versatile capabilities. With two or four 25GbE SFP28 ports and key performance optimizations, the E810 adapters supports solutions across Cloud, Enterprise, and Communications.
This product guide provides essential presales information to understand the Intel E810 adapters and their key features, specifications and compatibility. This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, IT architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn more about the E810 adapters and consider their use in IT solutions.
Change History
Changes in the August 9, 2024 update:
- With the latest E810 firmware, it is now supported to have E810 adapters in the same server as X350 HBA/RAID adapters (9350, 5350 and 4350) - Server support section
Introduction
The ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 and E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 network adapters improve application efficiency and network performance with innovative and versatile capabilities. With two or four 25GbE SFP28 ports and key performance optimizations, the E810 adapters supports solutions across Cloud, Enterprise, and Communications. The adapters are available in PCIe low profile and OCP 3.0 form factors.
The following figure shows the ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter.
Figure 1. ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
Did you know?
The Intel E810 adapter offers excellent small packet performance, and offers virtualization features with support for GENEVE, VXLAN, NVGRE offloads, DPDK, SR-IOV, and VMDq protocols.
Part number information
The following table provides the ordering part numbers and feature codes for the Intel E810 adapters.
The option part numbers includes the following items:
- One Intel Ethernet adapter
- Two-port PCIe adapters: Full-height (3U) bracket attached with low-profile (2U) bracket included in the box
- Four-port PCIe adapters: Full-height (3U) bracket attached
- Documentation
Note: The adapters ship without any SFP28 transceivers or direct attach cables. These items must be ordered separately as listed in the following section.
Supported transceivers and cables
The Intel E810 adapters have empty SFP28 cages for connectivity. The adapter either supports connections to a 10 Gb or 25 Gb switch or can share a connection to a 100 Gb switch using a 4:1 breakout cable.
The following table lists the supported transceivers.
25Gb transceivers: When installed in this 25Gb Ethernet adapter, 25Gb transceivers are designed to operate at either 25 Gb/s or 10 Gb/s speeds as listed in the description of the transceiver, however the speed also depends on the negotiation with the connected switch. In most configurations, this negotiation is automatic, however in some configurations you may have to manually set the link speed or FEC mode.
The following table lists the supported fiber optic cables and Active Optical Cables.
The following table lists the supported direct-attach copper (DAC) cables.
Features
Performance optimizations for Cloud, Enterprise, and Storage deployments
- Application Device Queues (ADQ) provides dedicated traffic queues to reduce latency and increase application throughput
- Dynamic Device Personalization enables protocol- specific traffic acceleration to improve packet processing efficiency and reduce CPU overhead
- iWARP and RoCEv2 support provides high-speed, low-latency, high-throughput connectivity for storage targets and initiators
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI: Using Intel E810 network adapters configured for RoCEv2 has not been certified by Lenovo for use in a Microsoft Azure Stack HCI cluster. Only the iWARP version of RDMA is supported for this adapter when installed in an HCI cluster node.
Accelerated packet processing for Communications workloads
- Enhanced Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) support increases packet processing speeds
- Dynamic Device Personalization enables protocol- specific traffic acceleration and reduces CPU overhead for emerging high-bandwidth workloads
- IEEE 1588 PTP v2 support enables precise clock synchronization across 5G RAN deployments
Application Device Queues (ADQ) for Predictability at Scale
As modern data centers scale, a key challenge is to provide scalable, predictable application-level performance. ADQ technology improves performance scalability and predictability by dedicating queues to key workloads, delivering predictable high performance through dramatically reduced jitter.
Increasing the predictability of application response times by lowering jitter enables more servers to be assigned to a task and can allow more users to access the system, providing a better end-user experience. Even applications that are not large scale can benefit from higher consistency, enabling them to meet service-level agreements (SLAs) more easily.
ADQ enables application-specific data steering, signaling, and rate limiting using an optimized application thread to device data path. This ability to dedicate queues and shape network traffic not only increases performance, it reduces latency and improves throughput.
Improve Packet Processing Efficiency with Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP)
DDP customizable packet filtering, along with enhanced DPDK, support advanced packet forwarding and highly-efficient packet processing for both Cloud and NFV workloads.
The Intel E810 adapter firmware loads an enhanced DDP profile with many workload-specific protocols at driver initialization for greater flexibility. When multiple Intel E810 adapters are present in a system, the pipeline on each adapter can be programmed independently with a different DDP profile.
IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
Intel E810 adapters support both IEEE 1588 PTP v1 and v2 with two-step option. The products provide increased accuracy at single-digit nanosecond level, and can report the reception time for every packet. This level of timing accuracy can help ensure tight synchronization across network deployments ranging from 5G RAN to financial services, industrial automation, and energy monitoring.
Increase Throughput and Lower Latency with Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)
RDMA provides high throughput and low-latency performance for modern high-speed Ethernet by eliminating three major sources of networking overhead: TCP/IP stack process, memory copies, and application context switches. Intel E810 adapters support all major storage transport protocols, including iWARP, RoCEv2, and NVMe over TCP.
RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet): RoCEv2 substitutes the InfiniBand physical layer and data link layer with Ethernet, operates on top of UDP/IP, and is routable over IP networks.
iWARP, IETF standard protocols based: Delivers RDMA on top of the pervasive TCP/IP protocol. iWARP RDMA runs over standard network and transport layers and works with all Ethernet network infrastructure. TCP provides flow control and congestion management and does not require a lossless Ethernet network. iWARP is a highly routable and scalable RDMA implementation.
Protect, Detect, and Recover
Zero Trust is a security design strategy centered on the belief that organizations, by default, should not automatically trust any request for system access. This includes requests coming from outside, as well as inside its perimeters. Zero Trust demands that every access request be verified before granting access.
The Intel E810 adapters implement a design philosophy of platform resiliency with 3 attributes compliant with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, including NIST 800-193 Platform Firmware Resiliency Guidelines: Protect, Detect and Recover. By design, the Hardware Root of Trust in the adapters protect the firmware and critical device settings with authentication for every access. Signed firmware updates and the Hardware Root of Trust protects and verifies critical device settings with built-in corruption detection and automated device recovery. Together these features ensure the device safely returns to its originally programmed state.
Specifications
The Intel E810 adapters have the following specifications:
Form factor:
- 2-port PCIe adapters: Low profile adapter
- 4-port PCIe adapters: Full-height half-length adapter
- OCP adapters: OCP 3.0 SFF adapter
Host Interface
- E810-DA2 (2-port) adapters: PCIe Gen4 or Gen3 x8 host interface (x8 physical connection)
- E810-DA4 (4-port) adapters: PCIe Gen4 or Gen3 x16 host interface (x16 physical connection)
- Concurrency for 256 non-posted requests
E810-DA4 adapters: The E810-DA4 adapter will perform without PCIe bandwidth limitations in either a x8 or x16 slot in PCIe Gen4 servers, however it needs to be installed in a x16 slot in PCIe Gen3 servers in order to prevent a PCIe bandwidth limitation.
Software Interface
- Base mode VF compatibility with Intel® Adaptive Virtual Functions Specification
- Tx/Rx Queues
- 2048 Tx queues and 2048 Rx queues
- Dynamic allocation of queues to functions and VSIs
- Interrupts
- 2048 interrupts vectors, allocated in a flexible manner to queues and other causes
- Multiple interrupt moderation schemes
- 20M interrupts/sec
- Control Queues (a.k.a. Admin Queues)
- Mailbox Queues for PF-VF and driver-driver
- Admin Queues for Software-Firmware control flows
- Sideband Queues for Software to access IPs inside the E810
- 256 Tx Doorbell (DB) Queues
- 512 Tx Completion Queues
- Quanta Descriptor (QD) Queue per Tx queue. Quanta information is also embedded in the Tx doorbell
- Programmable Rx descriptor fields
Packet Processing
- Enhanced Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK)
- General
- Stages of parsing, switching, ACLs, classification, packet modification
- Programmable packet processing pipeline
- Profile based
- Programmable actions
- Propagation of priorities between stages
- Parser
- Parses up to 504B from packet header
- Parse Graph based
- Session-based parsing
- Programmable parse engine
- Binary Classifier (VEB Switch)
- 768 switch ports (VSIs)
- Programmable forwarding rules
- Storm Control
- ACLs
- 8K programmable TCAM entries
- Tiling capability to n*40b width
- Classification Filters
- Hash-based statistical distribution
- Intel® Ethernet Flow Director (Intel® Ethernet FD) flow-based classification
- Flow-based identification of iWARP and RoCE flows
- Programmable rules
- Modifier
- Insert (Tx), remove (Rx), and modify of packet VLANs
- L3 and L4 checksums and CRC
Virtualization
- Host virtualization via VMDQ and SR-IOV
- Up to 256 SR-IOV Virtual Functions
- Stateless offloads for tunneled packets (network virtualization support)
- Malicious VF protection
- Virtual machine load balancing (VMLB)
- Advanced packet filtering
- VLAN support with VLAN tag insertion, stripping and packet filtering for up to 4096 VLAN tags
- VxLAN, GENEVE, NVGRE, MPLS, VxLAN-GPE with Network Service Headers (NSH)
- Intel® Ethernet Adaptive Virtual Function drivers
RDMA
- iWARP and RoCEv2
- 256K Queue Pairs (QPs)
- Send Queue Push Mode
Microsoft Azure Stack HCI: Using Intel E810 network adapters configured for RoCEv2 has not been certified by Lenovo for use in a Microsoft Azure Stack HCI cluster. Only the iWARP version of RDMA is supported for this adapter when installed in an HCI cluster node.
Quality of Service (QoS)
- WFQ Transmit scheduler with nine programmable layers
- Pipeline sharing and starvation avoidance
- QoS via 802.1p PCP or Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) value
- Packet shaping
Manageability
- SMBus operating at up to 1Mb/s
- OCP 3.0 adapter: DMTF-compliant NC-SI 1.1 Interface at 100Mb/s
- MCTP over PCIe and SMBus
- Enterprise-level management schemes via local BMC
- SNMP and RMON statistic counters
- Watchdog timer
- PLDM over MCTP; PLDM Monitoring; PLDM firmware update; PLDM for RDE
- Firmware Management Protocol support
Power Management
- Supports PCI power management states D3hot and D3cold
Time Synchronization
- Time stamp with each Rx packet
- Selective time stamps for Tx packets
- IEEE 1588 PTP v1 and v2
- Time synchronization signaling with other local platform ingredients
Pre-Boot
- Signed UEFI option ROM compatible with HTTPS boot
- PXE boot support
Security
- Hardware-based Root of Trust
- Authentication on NVM Read and Power On
- Built-in detection of firmware/critical setting corruption with automated device recovery
Server support
Note: The use of both an Intel E810 network adapter and an X350 HBA/RAID adapter (9350, 5350 and 4350) is supported, however E810 firmware CVL4.3 or later is required. For details, see Support Tip HT513226.
The following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that are compatible.
Operating system support
The following table indicates which operating systems can be preloaded in the Lenovo factory for CTO server orders where this adapter is included in the server configuration.
Tip: If an OS is listed as "No support" above, but it is listed in one of the support tables below, that means the OS is supported by the adapter, just not available to be preloaded in the Lenovo factory in CTO orders.
The following tables list the supported operating systems for the adapters:
- ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter, 4XC7A08295
- ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port OCP Ethernet Adapter, 4XC7A08294
Tip: These tables are automatically generated based on data from Lenovo ServerProven.
1 For limitation, please refer Support Tip 104278
1 The OS is not supported with EPYC 7003 processors.
1 For limitation, please refer Support Tip 104278
1 The OS is not supported with EPYC 7003 processors.
Physical specifications
The 2-port PCIe adapters have a Low Profile form factor with the following dimensions:
- Length: 168 mm (6.6 in.)
- Height: 69 mm (2.7 in.)
The 4-port PCIe adapters have a Full Height Half Length form factor
The OCP adapter has the following dimensions:
- Width: 76 mm (3 in.)
- Depth: 115 mm (4.5 in.)
Operating environment
The E810 adapters are supported in the following environment:
- Operating temperature: 0 to 55 °C (32 to 131 °F)
- Storage temperature: -40 °C to 70 °C (-40 °F to 158 °F)
- Relative humidity (non-operating): 10% to 90%
Warranty
One-year limited warranty. When installed in a supported server, these adapters assume the server’s base warranty and any warranty upgrade.
Related publications
For more information, see the following resources:
- Networking Options for ThinkSystem Servers
https://lenovopress.com/lp0765-networking-options-for-thinksystem-servers - Intel Product page for E810-XXVDA2 PCIe adapter
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/network-io/ethernet/ethernet-adapters/ethernet-800-series-network-adapters/e810-xxvda2.html - Intel Product page for E810-XXVDA2 OCP adapter
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/network-io/ethernet/ethernet-adapters/ethernet-800-series-network-adapters/e810-xxvda2-ocp-3.html - Lenovo ServerProven compatibility information
http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/serverproven
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The following terms are trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both:
Lenovo®
ServerProven®
ThinkEdge®
ThinkSystem®
The following terms are trademarks of other companies:
AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Intel® and Xeon® are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
Linux® is the trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Microsoft®, Azure®, Windows Server®, and Windows® are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
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Full Change History
Changes in the August 9, 2024 update:
- With the latest E810 firmware, it is now supported to have E810 adapters in the same server as X350 HBA/RAID adapters (9350, 5350 and 4350) - Server support section
Changes in the August 1, 2024 update:
- Added information about factory preload support for operating systems - Operating system support section
Changes in the July 11, 2024 update:
- Added a note regarding the use of these adapters with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI - Features section
Changes in the April 15, 2024 update:
- Added PXE boot support - Specifications section:
Changes in the March 22, 2024 update:
- Added the following note regarding the E810-DA4 adapter - Specifications section:
The E810-DA4 adapter will perform without PCIe bandwidth limitations in either a x8 or x16 slot in PCIe Gen4 servers, however it needs to be installed in a x16 slot in PCIe Gen3 servers in order to prevent a PCIe bandwidth limitation.
Changes in the October 31, 2023 update:
- Added the following transceiver - Supported transceivers and cables section:
- ThinkSystem Finisar Dual Rate 10G/25G SR SFP28 Transceiver, 4TC7A88638
Changes in the September 19, 2023 update:
- Added a photo of the ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
Changes in the September 17, 2023 update:
- Withdrawn cables are now hidden; click Show Withdrawn Products to view them - Supported transceivers and cables section
Changes in the May 10, 2023 update:
- Added the following transceiver - Supported transceivers and cables section:
- Lenovo Dual Rate 1G/10GB SFP Transceiver, 00MY034
Changes in the January 31, 2023 update:
- The 4-port adapter is a full-height adapter
Changes in the December 15, 2022 update:
- Added the following adapter:
- ThinkEdge SE450 Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter, BMHG
Changes in the November 27, 2022 update:
- 4-port adapters have a PCIe 4.0 x16 host interface
Changes in the November 8, 2022 update:
- Added the following new adapters:
- ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter, 4XC7A80269
- ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter, 4XC7A80267
- Added the following breakout cables - Supported transceivers and cables section:
- Lenovo 1.5m 100G to 4x25G Breakout SFP28 Breakout DAC Cable, 4Z57A85043
- Lenovo 2m 100G to 4x25G Breakout SFP28 Breakout DAC Cable, 4Z57A85044
Changes in the April 13, 2022 update:
- The E810 adapters are currently not supported in a server with a X350 HBA or RAID adapter - Server support section
Changes in the December 14, 2021 update:
- Added support for the following transceivers - Supported transceivers and cables section:
- ThinkSystem Accelink 10G SR SFP+ Ethernet transceiver, 4TC7A78615
- Lenovo 25Gb SR SFP28 Ethernet Transceiver, 4M27A67041
Changes in the October 21, 2021 update:
- Correction: 25GbE transceivers can operate at 25 Gb/s or 10 Gb/s speeds when installed in the Intel E810 adapters, however this feature requires the latest firmware - Supported transceivers and cables section
Changes in the October 20, 2021 update:
- Added a note that the 25GbE transceiver, when installed in the E810 adapters, will only operate at 25 Gb/s - Supported transceivers and cables section
Changes in the June 2, 2021 update:
- Added Operating system information, automatically generated from ServerProven data - Operating system support section
First published: April 20, 2021
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