Ethernet Support Guide for HP-UX 11i v3

1000Base-SX cards support full-duplex point-to-point or back-to-back operations only (using
switch-to-card or card-to-card connections). The cards do not support half-duplex and do not speed
negotiate (1000 Mbit/s operation only) but do perform autonegotiation for other link parameters.
Mezzanine cards and combination (combo) cards are available for some HP servers. The mezzanine
cards provide two or more Gigabit Ethernet ports on a single card. The cards are designed for
applications that require additional Gigabit Ethernet ports than those provided on the server. They
are ideal for virtualization, security, server consolidation, network segmentation, and other
BladeSystem applications requiring additional network port density. Likewise, the combo cards
provide multiple-function ports with both Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity. HP-UX allows
you to configure the card as several devices, each with different connection functionality.
Some of the other major features that might be provided by Gigabit Ethernet cards are listed in
Section 1.5 (page 9).
HP-UX provides drivers that manage Gigabit Ethernet cards and interfaces. The drivers are shipped
with software bundles. Each driver may support several cards. Table 1 (page 7) lists the HP-UX
Gigabit drivers, their associated bundle names, and the manpage where you can obtain more
information. Some information about managing drivers is also included in “Setting and displaying
driver Ethernet parameters” (page 21).
Table 1 HP-UX Gigabit drivers
ManpageBundleDriver
nwmgr_gelan(1m)GigEther-00gelan
nwmgr_igelan(1m)GigEther-01igelan
nwmgr_iether(1m)IEther-00iether
For more detailed information on the currently supported Gigabit Ethernet cards, drivers, and the
platforms that support them, see the HP-UX Ethernet Card Support Matrix document at the following
Business Support Center website:
www.hp.com/go/hpux-iocards-11iv3-docs
To see what has changed from one release to the next, see the appropriate release notes for the
driver. The release notes are also located at the previously-mentioned website.
1.3 10 Gigabit Ethernet and cards
10 Gigabit Ethernet (also referred to as 10GbE) is a telecommunication technology standardized
in IEEE 802.3a that offers data speeds up to 10 Gb/s — ten times faster than Gigabit Ethernet.
Built on the Ethernet technology used in most of today's local area networks (LANs), 10 Gigabit
Ethernet offers more bandwidth for moving data on backbone connections between networks while
also providing a consistent technology end-to-end.
10 Gigabit Ethernet can be used to interconnect LANs, wide area networks (WANs), and
metropolitan area networks (MANs). 10 Gigabit Ethernet uses only full-duplex point-to-point
transmission over optical fiber, which makes possible a considerable distance range. On multi-mode
fiber, 10 Gigabit Ethernet can support distances up to 300 meters; on single-mode fiber, it can
support distances up to 40 kilometers. Gigabit Ethernet networks can feed into a 10 Gigabit
Ethernet network.
10GbE network interface cards plug into ordinary computer servers using the PCIe (PCI Express)
and PCI-X (PCI-eXtended) bus technology and connect to the LAN with a choice of physical (PHY)
modules. HP-UX supports a wide variety of cards, as described in Section 1.4 (page 8). These
cards offer features provided by Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet cards, as described in previous
sections.
Some of the other major features that might be provided by 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards are listed
in Section 1.5 (page 9).
1.3 10 Gigabit Ethernet and cards 7