Specifications

Chapter 7. Virtualization 281
Virtual Ethernet has the following major features:
򐂰 Virtual Ethernet adapters can be used for both IPv4 and IPv6 communication
and can transmit packets up to 65,408 bytes in size. Therefore, the maximum
transmission unit (MTU) for the corresponding interface can be up to 65,394
(65,408 minus 14 for the header) in the non-VLAN case, and up to 65,390
(65,408 minus 14, minus 4) if VLAN tagging is used.
򐂰 The POWER Hypervisor presents itself to partitions as a virtual
802.1Q-compliant switch. The maximum number of VLANs is 4096. Virtual
Ethernet adapters can be configured as either untagged or tagged (following
the IEEE 802.1Q VLAN standard).
򐂰 An AIX partition supports 256 virtual Ethernet adapters for each logical
partition. Aside from a default port VLAN ID, the number of additional VLAN
ID values that can be assigned per virtual Ethernet adapter is 20, which
implies that each virtual Ethernet adapter can be used to access 21
virtual networks.
򐂰 Each operating system partition detects the virtual local area network (VLAN)
switch as an Ethernet adapter without the physical link properties and
asynchronous data transmit operations.
Any virtual Ethernet can also have connectivity outside of the server if a Layer 2
bridge to a physical Ethernet adapter is configured in a VIOS partition. The
device configured in this fashion is the SEA.
Virtual Fibre Channel
A virtual Fibre Channel adapter is a virtual adapter that provides client logical
partitions with a Fibre Channel connection to a storage area network (SAN)
through the VIOS logical partition. The VIOS logical partition provides the
connection between the virtual Fibre Channel adapters on the VIOS logical
partition and the physical Fibre Channel adapters on the managed system.
N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV) is a standard technology for Fibre Channel
networks. You can use NPIV to connect multiple logical partitions to one physical
port of a physical Fibre Channel adapter. Each logical partition is identified by a
unique worldwide port name (WWPN), which means that you can connect each
logical partition to independent physical storage on a SAN.
Important: Virtual Ethernet is based on the IEEE 802.1Q VLAN standard. No
physical I/O adapter is required when creating a VLAN connection between
partitions, and no access to an outside network is required for
inter-partition communication.