Implementing SR-IOV on HP ProLiant Servers with VMware vSphere 5.1

Technical white paper | Implementing SR-IOV on HP ProLiant Servers with VMware vSphere 5.1
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SL270s Gen8 P75 12/11/2012 or later
SR-IOV-compliant network adapters
At this time, you must use one of the following network adapters to implement SR-IOV:
• HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLB Adapter: A dual port 10Gb Ethernet FlexibleLOM mezzanine adapter based on the Intel
82599 controller. The 560FLB is designed for use with HP ProLiant BladeSystem c-Class Gen8 servers. For details on this
network adapter, see the HP website at
hp.com/products/servers/networking/560FLB/index.html.
• HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560M Adapter: A dual port 10Gb Ethernet mezzanine adapter based on the Intel 82599
controller. The 560M is designed for use with HP ProLiant BladeSystem c-Class Gen8 servers. For details on this network
adapter, see the HP website at
hp.com/products/servers/networking/560M/index.html.
• HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560SFP+ Adapter: A small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) adapter based on the Intel 82599
controller. The 560SFP+ is designed for use with supported HP ProLiant DL, ML, or SL G7 or Gen8 servers. For details on
this network adapter, see the HP website at
hp.com/products/servers/networking/560SFP/index.html.
• HP Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ Adapter: A small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) adapter based on the Intel 82599
controller. The 560FLR-SFP+ designed for use with supported HP ProLiant DL Gen8 servers. For details on this network
adapter, see the HP website at
hp.com/products/servers/networking/560FLR/index.html.
The ESXi drivers for these network adapters are available on the HP Customized ESXi Image and Auto Deploy depot for
vSphere 5.1, which are available for download at
hp.com/go/esxidownload. If you do not want to use the HP Customized
ESXi Image or Auto Deploy depot, the drivers and utilities are available for direct download at
hp.com/products/servers/software/vmware-esxi/driver_version.html. To determine the appropriate driver versions, the
contents of the HP Customized ESXi Image including driver versions are available at
hp.com/products/servers/software/vmware-esxi/driver_version.html.
In addition to ESXi drivers, each Guest OS must contain appropriate device drivers for the VFs. VMware Tools does not carry
VF device drivers. Some OSs may have drivers that support the VFs; however, HP highly recommends the use of the VF
drivers available on the SPP. Following SPP ISO image download from
hp.com/go/spp, attach the ISO image to the VM and
follow the HP Smart Update Manager (HP SUM) install or update procedure as discussed in the HP Smart Update Manager
User Guide available at
hp.com/go/spp.
Supported Guest Operating System Versions
SR-IOV support is available for VMs with the following Guest OS:
• Microsoft® Windows® Server 2012
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 x64
SR-IOV limitations
There are solution, configuration, and feature support limitations to be aware of when planning a SR-IOV implementation:
• HP does not currently support SR-IOV in Virtual Connect environments. A future Virtual Connect release will enable this
capability.
• Each ESXi host has a total of 256 interrupt vectors, with 128 of those potentially available for VFs. When the host boots,
devices in the system will consume a subset of the 256 available vectors. In the case that these devices require a total of
more than 128, the maximum number of potential VFs supported is reduced.
– For Intel 82599-based network adapters, each VF consumes 3 interrupt vectors. Therefore, on a system with all 128
interrupt vectors available, a maximum of 42 VFs (128 / 3 = 42.6) are supported. As VMs power on and the Guest OS VF
driver starts, interrupt vectors are consumed. In scenarios where there is not the required number of interrupt vectors
available, the Guest OS will shut down unexpectedly without any error messages.
– There is not currently a method available to determine the number of interrupt vectors consumed or available on a
host. To determine if the VM is unable to start successfully due to a lack of interrupt vectors, view the vmkernel.log and
look for the following entry:
WARNING: IntrVector: 233: Out of interrupt vectors