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Abstract
IBM is committed to offering both function and flexibility to our clients through our products. IBM BladeCenter was the first to offer end-to-end 10 Gb Ethernet in a blade server configuration, and these expansion cards are part of that offering. IBM offers two new versions of the card, 2-port and 4-port, both based on the new Broadcom 57711 controller.
Note: These adapters have been withdrawn from marketing.
Introduction
BladeCenter was the first to offer end-to-end 10 Gb Ethernet in a blade server configuration, and these expansion cards are part of that offering. IBM offers two new versions of the card, 2-port and 4-port, both based on the new Broadcom 57711 controller. The existing cards, based on the proven Broadcom 57710 module, will continue to be available to support customers who want to maintain a consistent hardware configuration.
Figure 1 shows the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh). The 4-port card has a second Broadcom module under the heatsink and is almost identical.
Figure 1. Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh)
Did you know?
Installing a Broadcom 10 Gb 4-port Gen 2 Ethernet Expansion Card to every blade server in a BladeCenter H chassis, plus the addition of four High-Speed I/O Modules, allows up to 40 Gbps of Ethernet bandwidth to every server in the chassis. This has the potential of meeting even the most bandwidth-intensive application needs, such as virtualization.
The adapter connects to the midplane directly, without having to use cables or SFP modules. By eliminating these components for up to 14 servers, the resulting savings alone cover the BladeCenter chassis investment.
Part number information
Table 1. Ordering part number and feature code
| Description | Part number | Feature code |
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) | 46M6168* | 0099 |
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) | 46M6164* | 0098 |
* Withdrawn from marketing
These part numbers include the following items:
- One 2-port card (part number 46M6168) or one 4-port card (part number 46M6164)
- Documentation package
Features
The expansion card has the following features and benefits:
- Offers an end-to-end solution up to 10 Gb
- Based on the Broadcom 57711 module
- One (two-port card) or two (four-port card) PCI Express 2.0 x8 host interfaces for high-speed connection
- Connectivity to high-speed I/O module bays in BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT chassis
- Enables two or four 10 Gb ports from the blade server to the external network
- Supports failover
- Supports BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager
- Supports iSCSI BladeBoot
- Supports Wake-on-LAN
- Out-of-box support for SOL and cKVM over the high-speed network
Performance features:
- TCP offload engine (TOE)
- Full fast-path TCP offload
- TCP/IP checksum offload
- TCP/IP segmentation offload
- Improved performance over the Broadcom BCM57710 module
The expansion card has the following specifications:
- BladeCenter form factor: CFFh
- Host data transfer: PCI Express 2.0 x8
- One x8 interface for the two-port card
- Two x8 interfaces for the four-port card
- Operating power: Less than 15 watts
- Communication module: Broadcom BCM57711
Operating environment
The expansion card is supported in the following environments:
- Temperature: 10 to 35 °C (50 to 95 °F)
- Relative humidity: 8% to 80% (non-condensing)
Supported servers
The Broadcom 2-Port and 4-Port 10 Gb Ethernet Expansion Cards (CFFh) are supported in the BladeCenter servers that we listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Supported servers
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Exp. Card (CFFh) | 46M6168 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N |
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Exp. Card (CFFh) | 46M6164 | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N |
Figure 2 shows where the CFFh card is installed in a BladeCenter server.
Figure 2. Location on the BladeCenter server planar where the CFFh card is installed
BladeCenter chassis support is based on the blade server type in which the expansion card is installed. Consult ServerProven to see which chassis each blade server type is supported in: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/.
Supported I/O modules
Table 3 lists the I/O modules that can be used to connect to the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port and 4-port Ethernet Expansion Cards (CFFh).
Table 3. I/O modules supported with the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port and 4-port Ethernet Expansion Cards
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BNT 6-port 10 Gb High Speed Switch Module | 39Y9267 | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N |
| 10 Gb Ethernet Pass-Thru Module for BladeCenter | 46M6181 | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N |
| BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module | 46C7191 | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N |
| Cisco Nexus 4001I Switch Module | 46M6071 | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | N |
The I/O module listed in Table 3 is supported in BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT chassis only.
In BladeCenter H, the ports of CFFh cards are routed through the midplane to I/O bays 7, 8, 9, and 10, as shown in Figure 3. The BladeCenter HT is similar in that the CFFh cards are also routed through the midplane to I/O bays 7, 8, 9, and 10.
Figure 3. BladeCenter H I/O topology showing the I/O paths from CFFh expansion cards
One I/O module must be installed in the chassis for each Ethernet port that you want to use on the expansion card. Table 4 lists the specific I/O bays in the chassis.
- For the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh), you must install an I/O module in I/O bays 7 and 9 (that is, two I/O modules).
- For the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh), you must install an I/O module in I/O bays 7, 8, 9, and 10 (that is, four I/O modules).
Table 4. Locations of I/O modules required to connect to the expansion card
| Expansion card | I/O bay 7 | I/O bay 8 | I/O bay 9 | I/O bay 10 |
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) | Supported I/O module | Not used | Supported I/O module | Not used |
| Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) | Supported I/O module | Supported I/O module | Supported I/O module | Supported I/O module |
Wake-on-LAN support
Wake-on-LAN (WOL) is supported on all servers listed in Table 2, with the exception of:
- BladeCenter HS21
- BladeCenter HS21 XM
In addition, when used with the four-port card, WOL is only supported with the switch modules in bays 7 and 9 only. WOL is not supported with bays 8 and 10.
Popular configurations
Figure 4 shows a configuration using the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh). This solution enables four 10 Gbps Ethernet connections from each blade server.
Figure 4. 40 Gb solution using the Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh)
Table 5 provides the components used in this configuration.
Table 5. Components used when connecting Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) to four BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Modules
| Diagram reference | Part number/ machine type | Description | Quantity |
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Varies | BladeCenter HS22 or other supported server | 1 to 14 |
 |
46M6164 | Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 4-port Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh) | 1 per server |
 |
8852 or 8740/8750 | BladeCenter H or BladeCenter HT | 1 |
 |
46C7191 | BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb Switch Module | 4 |
 |
44W4408 | IBM 10 GBase-SR 10 GbE 850 nm Fiber SFP+ Transceiver | Up to 40* |
* You must have one transceiver for each 10 Gb port in an I/O module.
Operating system support
The Broadcom 10 Gb Gen 2 2-port and 4-port Ethernet Expansion Cards (CFFh) support the following operating systems:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Datacenter x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Enterprise x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Standard x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Standard x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Web x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, Web x86 Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for AMD64/EM64T
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for x86
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for AMD64/EM64T
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for x86
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition with Xen
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server with Xen x64 Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server x64 Edition
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64/EM64T
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for x86
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
- VMware ESX 3.5
- VMware ESX 4.0
- VMware ESXi 3.5
- VMware ESXi 4.0
Support for operating systems is based on the combination of the expansion card and the blade server in which it is installed. See IBM ServerProven for the latest information about the specific versions and service packs supported: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/. Select the blade server and then select the expansion card to see the supported operating systems.
Related product families
Product families related to this document are the following:
Trademarks
Lenovo and the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both. A current list of Lenovo trademarks is available on the Web at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/legal/copytrade/.
The following terms are trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both:
Lenovo®
BladeCenter®
ServerProven®
The following terms are trademarks of other companies:
Linux® is the trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Microsoft®, 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.
