IBM Power Systems SR-IOV: Technical Overview and IntroductionThis IBM® RedpaperTM publication describes the adapter-based virtualization capabilities that are being deployed in high-end IBM POWER7+TM processor-based servers. Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) is a virtualization technology on IBM Power Systems servers. SR-IOV allows multiple logical partitions (LPARs) to share a PCIe adapter with little or no run time involvement of a hypervisor or other virtualization intermediary. SR-IOV does not replace the existing virtualization capabilities that are offered as part of the IBM PowerVM® offerings. Rather, SR-IOV compliments them with additional capabilities. This paper describes many aspects of the SR-IOV technology, including:
This paper is directed to clients, IBM Business Partners, and system administrators who are involved with planning, deploying, configuring, and maintaining key virtualization technologies. |
Common terms and phrases
adapter configuration adapter firmware adapter id=1 Adapter Physical Port Advanced tab Capacity setting client dedicated mode device driver DLPAR enabled ent0 error Ethernet ports firmware level Gbps Hardware HMC GUI hypervisor IBM Power IBM Power Systems IBM Redbooks Integrated Multifunction CNA jumbo frames Link Aggregation Linux Live Partition Mobility Logical Port Logical Logical Port Properties Logical Ports panel logical ports VFs LPAR lscfg lshwres MAC Address Network Interface number of logical operating system partition profile PCIe Physical I/O Physical Port Logical Physical Port Physical Physical Port Properties Port Fabric Port Logical Port Port Physical Port Port Properties panel port’s ports configured POWER8 PowerVM SEA promiscuous mode rsubtype adapter rsubtype logport server Shared Ethernet Adapter slot SR-IOV Adapter Physical SR-IOV capable adapter SR-IOV logical port SR-IOV ports SR-IOV shared mode sriov rsubtype switch the adapter Tasks menu trademarks Virtual Eth Virtual Ethernet Virtual Function VLAN vNIC