Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet

IBM i products support Gigabit and 10 Gbps Ethernet, which requires the use of a 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps input/output adapter (IOA). The support for 10 Gbps Ethernet is limited to some models.

IBM i supports several different Ethernet input/output adapters (IOAs). Each IOA has ports that can transmit and receive Ethernet traffic at 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), 10 Gbps, or both. Some also support traffic at 10 or 100 megabits per second (Mbps). All of the adapters support Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and 9000-byte jumbo frames. The IBM i operating system does not have integrated support for SNA over Ethernet: Enterprise Extender or AnyNet(^R) is required to use SNA over Ethernet. The following table summarizes IBM i support for the gigabit and 10-gigabit Ethernet physical interconnects.

Table 1. Summary of IOA support by physical interconnect, speed, and cable type.
Physical interconnect Speed Cable Adapter types
10BASE-T/100BASE-TX 10/100 Mbps CAT 5e+ 5701, 5706, 5767, 576F, 181A, 181C, 1818, 1819, 266D, 2BC4, 2B931, 2CC11, 2CC01
1GBASE-T 1 Gbps CAT 5e+ 5701, 5706, 5767, 576F, 181A, 181C, 1818, 1819, 266D, 2BC4, 2B931, 2CC11, 2CC01, 2C4C1, 2C4D1
10GBASE-T 10 Gbps CAT 6e+ 2C4C1, 2C4D1
1000BASE-SX 1 Gbps MMF 5700, 5707, 5768
10GBASE-SR 10 Gbps MMF 573A, 181B, 1820, 1830, 1831, 266E, 266F, 2BC6, 2B931, 2C4D1, 2CE3
10GBASE-LR 10 Gbps SMF 576A, 576E, 2CC01
SFP+ Direct Attach 10 Gbps SFP Twinax Cu 2BDC, 2CC11, 2C4C1, 2CE4
Footnote:
  1. This IOA has more than one type of port, and each type supports different physical interconnections.

The 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1GBASE-T, and 10GBASE-T physical interconnects all use copper Universal Twisted Pair (UTP) cables with RJ45 connectors. They require CAT 5e or higher standard of cable, which is wired to the TIA/EIA 568-B standard; crossover cables are not supported.

The 1000BASE-SX, 10GBASE-SR (short range), and 10GBASE-LR (long reach) physical interconnects use fiber-optic cabling. 1000BASE-SX and 10GBASE-SR use 50-micron or 62.5-micron multi-mode fiber (MMF) cables, and 10GBASE-LR uses 9-micron single-mode fiber (SMF) cables. The 576A adapter port uses duplex SC connectors, and all other supported fiber-optic ports use duplex LC connectors.

The SFP+ Direct Attach physical interconnect is also referred to by several other names, including DA, SFP+, 10GSFP+Cu, 10GBASE-CX1, and 10GBASE-CR. These resources use twin-axial copper (Cu) cables with ends that connect directly into the SFP+ port. The hardware documentation for each IOA specifies which cables work with which adapter ports.

Table 2. Summary of IOA support by release
IOA Earliest IBM i release supported
5700 V5R2
5701 V5R2
5706 V5R3
5707 V5R3
573A V5R4
576A V5R4
5767 V5R4
5768 V5R4
181A V5R4
181C V5R4
1818 V6R1M0
1819 V6R1M0
181B V6R1M0
1820 V6R1M0
1830 V6R1M0
576E V6R1M0
576F i 7.1 TR4
2B93 i 7.1 TR7
2CC1 i 7.1 TR7
2C4D i 7.1 TR7
2C4C i 7.1 TR7
2CC0 i 7.1 TR8
2CE3 i 7.1 TR10 and i 7.2 TR2
2CE4 i 7.1 TR10 and i 7.2 TR2

Ethernet frames can contain anywhere from 64 to 9000 bytes of information. All of these cards support the largest, 9000-byte jumbo frame size. The amount of work for the adapter to process each frame, regardless of size, is nearly the same. Therefore, you want to pack the most information possible into each frame. The final result will be to decrease processor utilization, leaving it more available for other application usage.

Note: Your system is limited by the switches, hubs, and devices that it connects to. Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and jumbo frames can only be used if all devices support them.