80 IBM BladeCenter PS700, PS701, and PS702 Technical Overview and Introduction
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 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.
NPIV is a standard technology for Fibre Channel networks. It enables you to connect multiple
logical partitions to one physical port of a physical Fibre Channel adapter. Each logical
partition is identified by a unique WWPN, which means that you can connect each logical
partition to independent physical storage on a SAN.
You can only configure virtual Fibre Channel adapters on client logical partitions that run the
following operating systems:
AIX version 6.1 Technology Level 2, or later
AIX 5.3 Technology Level 9
IBM i version 6.1.1, or later
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, or later
For details on which expansion card support NPIV see 3.3.7, “N_Port ID Virtualization
(NPIV)” on page 96
On systems that are managed by the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM), you can
dynamically add and remove worldwide port names (WWPNs) to and from logical partitions,
and you can dynamically change the physical ports to which the WWPNs are assigned. You
can also view information about the virtual and physical Fibre Channel adapters and the
WWPNs by using the lsmap and lsnports commands.
For more information about how virtual Fibre Channel is managed on IVM see the following
Web page:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/arecu/ar
ecukickoff.htm
Figure 3-1 on page 81 depicts the connections between the client partition virtual Fibre
Channel adapters and the external storage.
Note: To enable NPIV on a managed system, we need VIOS to be at version 2.1 or later.
Also, check if the Fibre Channel adapter on managed system supports NPIV.
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