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.
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:
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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.
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.