Lenovo 49Y7970, 49Y7972 User Manual

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for
System x and ThinkServer

Product Guide

The Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE adapters for System x are powered by reliable and proven 10
Gb Ethernet technology. These adapters offer full line-rate 10 Gbps performance for high-IO intensive
applications, and showcase the next generation in 10 GbE networking features for the enterprise network
and data center. For ThinkServer, the X520 and X540 adapters also include FCoE and iSCSI Converged
Ethernet support.

The Intel X520 adapter provides SFP+ based connectivity options (fiber or DAC cabling). The Intel X540
adapter offers 10GBASE-T connectivity with RJ-45 ports, with compatibility with the existing 1000BASE-T
network, simplifying the transition to the 10 Gb Ethernet technology. Both the X520 and X540 are available
in either standard PCIe low-profile card form factor or mezzanine card form factor.

Figure 1. Intel X540-T2 Dual Port 10GBaseT Adapter for System x

Did you know?

In a multicore platform, the Intel X520 and X540 adapters support Intel I/O Virtualization Technology
(IOVT), which helps accelerate data across the platform, therefore improving application response times.
For virtualized environments, Intel Ethernet adapters offer advanced features with VMDq that lower
processor utilization and increase I/O performance.

The X520 and X540 adapters are available in special mezzanine form factors for supported System x and
ThinkServer systems. This form factor allows you to use the server's standard PCIe slots for other
technologies.

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Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 1

Part number information

The following tables provide the ordering part numbers and feature codes for the Intel X520 and X540
adapters.

Table 1. Ordering part numbers and feature codes - System x and sd350

Part number Feature code Description

Intel X520 SFP+ adapters

49Y7960 A2EC Intel X520 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter

49Y7980* A3JS Intel X520 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Embedded Adapter

00MM880 ATPH Intel X520 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ OCP Mezz

Intel X540 10GBaseT adapters

49Y7970 A2ED Intel X540-T2 Dual Port 10GBaseT Adapter

49Y7990* A3JT Intel X540 Dual Port 10GBase-T Embedded Adapter

00D1994 A40P Intel X540 ML2 Dual Port 10GbaseT Adapte

* Withdrawn from marketing

Table 2. Ordering part numbers - ThinkServer

Part number Description

Intel X520 SFP+ adapters

4XC0F28733 Lenovo ThinkServer X520-SR2 PCIe 10Gb 2 Port SFP+ Ethernet Adapter by Intel

4XC0F28734 Lenovo ThinkServer X520-DA2 PCIe 10Gb 2 Port SFP+ Ethernet Adapter by Intel

4XC0F28742 Lenovo ThinkServer X520-DA2 AnyFabric 10Gb 2 Port SFP+ Ethernet Adapter by Intel

Intel X540 10GBaseT adapters

4XC0F28732 Lenovo ThinkServer X540-T2 PCIe 10Gb 2 Port Base-T Ethernet Adapter by Intel

4XC0F28741 Lenovo ThinkServer X540-T2 AnyFabric 10Gb 2 Port Base-T Ethernet Adapter By Intel

The adapter option part numbers includes the following items:

One Intel 10 Gb Ethernet adapter
Full-height (3U) bracket attached with low-profile (2U) bracket included in the box (except for the
ML2, Embedded, AnyFabric and OCP Mezz adapters)
Installation and warranty documentation

Note: The X520 adapters ship without any SFP+ transceivers or direct attach cables, with the exception of
the X520-SR2 adapter. Cables and transceivers need to be ordered separately (see the following section
for details).

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 2

Transceivers and cables

The X520-SR2 adapter includes two SR SFP+ transceivers. All other X520 dual-port adapters have two
empty SFP+ cages that support SFP+ SR transceivers and direct-attached copper (DAC) cables.

Note: The X540 adapters do not require the use of transceivers or DAC cables.

The following table lists the supported 10Gb Ethernet SFP+ optical transceivers and DAC cables for the
System x adapters listed in Table 1. Both adapter ports must have the same type of transceiver or DAC
cable selected.

Table 3. Supported optical transceivers - System x

Part number Feature code Description

10 GbE SFP+ transceivers - System x

46C3447 5053 Lenovo 10GBASE-SR SFP+ Transceiver

49Y4216 0069 Brocade 10Gb SFP+ SR Optical Transceiver

49Y4218 0064 QLogic 10Gb SFP+ SR Optical Transceiver

The following table lists the supported 10Gb Ethernet SFP+ optical transceiver for the ThinkServer
adapters listed in Table 2 as well as the X520 OCP adapter listed in Table 1. These adapters also support
the DAC cables listed in the preceding table. Both adapter ports must have the same type of transceiver or
DAC cable selected.

Table 4. Supported optical transceivers - ThinkServer

Part number Description

4XC0F28735 Lenovo ThinkServer 10Gb Optical Module by Intel

The following table lists the supported fiber optic cables.

Table 5. Optical cables

Part number Feature code Description

LC-LC 0M3 Fiber Optic Cables (requires transceivers)

00MN499 ASR5 Lenovo 0.5m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN502 ASR6 Lenovo 1m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN505 ASR7 Lenovo 3m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN508 ASR8 Lenovo 5m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN511 ASR9 Lenovo 10m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN514 ASRA Lenovo 15m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN517 ASRB Lenovo 25m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

00MN520 ASRC Lenovo 30m LC-LC OM3 MMF Cable

The following table lists the supported direct-attach copper (DAC) cables.

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 3

Table 6. Copper cables

Part number Feature code Description

SFP+ Passive DAC Cables

00D6288 A3RG 0.5m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

90Y9427 A1PH 1m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

00AY764 A51N 1.5m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

00AY765 A51P 2m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

90Y9430 A1PJ 3m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

90Y9433 A1PK 5m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

00D6151 A3RH 7m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

90Y9436* A1PL 8.5m Passive DAC SFP+ Cable

SFP+ Active DAC Cables

00VX111 AT2R Lenovo 1m Active DAC SFP+ Cables

00VX114 AT2S Lenovo 3m Active DAC SFP+ Cables

00VX117 AT2T Lenovo 5m Active DAC SFP+ Cables

* Withdrawn from marketing

The following figure shows the Intel X520 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter.

Figure 2. Intel X520 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 4

The following figure shows the Intel X540 Dual Port 10GBase-T Embedded Adapter.

Figure 3. Intel X540 Dual Port 10GBase-T Embedded Adapter

Features

The Intel X520 and X540 adapters have the following features:

Load balancing on multiple processors, which increases performance on multiprocessor systems by
efficiently balancing network loads across processor cores when used with Receive Side Scaling
from Microsoft or Scalable I/O on Linux.

Header Splits and Replication in Receive helps the driver focus on the relevant part of the packet
without needing to parse it.

Multiple queues allow packet handling without the waiting/buffer overflow, which provides efficient
packet prioritization.

Storage offloads: The ThinkServer adapters listed in Table 2 support the following storage
protocols:

FCoE (Data Center Bridging DCB, Converged Enhanced Ethernet CEE)

iSCSI
The X520 OCP adapter for the sd350 supports iSCSI but does not support FCoE. System x servers
support iSCSI boot as a software iSCSI initiator.

Offload features:

IP, TCP, and UDP checksum offload (IPv4 and IPv6)

TCP segmentation/large send offload (IPv4 and IPv6)

IPsec offload

MACsec offload

Receive Side Scaling for Windows and Scalable I/O for Linux (IPv4, IPv6, and TCP/ UDP)

Support for Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) with I/OAT and VMDq.

IEEE 802.1Q VLAN support with VLAN tag insertion, with stripping and packet filtering for up to
4096 VLAN tags.

IEEE 802.3x flow control support.

IEEE 802.1p Class of Service/Quality of Service.

Support for Advanced Packet Filtering.

Jumbo frames support (up to 9,500 bytes).

Support for both UEFI and PXE boot.

Teaming support:

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 5

Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT)

Switch Fault Tolerance (SFT)

Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB)

Virtual Machine Load Balancing (VMLB)

IEEE 802.3ad (link aggregation control protocol)

Intel PROSet Utility for easy configuration and management.

Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (Intel I/OAT) is a suite of features that improves data acceleration across
the platform, from networking devices to the chipset and processors, which helps improve system
performance and application response times. The suite of features includes:

Direct Cache Access (DCA): Enables the adapter to prefetch data from the memory cache, thereby
avoiding cache misses and improving application response times.

MSI-X interrupts: Minimizes the impact of I/O interrupts by load balancing interrupts across multiple
processor cores.

Low-Latency Interrupts: Allows the adapter to bypass the automatic moderation of time intervals
between the interrupts (based on the sensitivity of the incoming data).

Receive Side Scaling (RSS) and Scalable I/O: Directs the interrupts to a specific processor core
based on the application’s address.

Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) reduces I/O impact on the hypervisor in a virtualized server by
performing data sorting and coalescing in the network silicon. VMDq technology makes use of multiple
queues in the network controller. As data packets enter the network adapter, they are sorted, and packets
traveling to the same destination (or virtual machine) are grouped together in a single queue. The packets
are then sent to the hypervisor, which directs them to their respective virtual machines. Relieving the
hypervisor of packet filtering and sorting improves overall processor usage and throughput levels.

The ThinkServer and OCP adapter support full iSCSI and FCoE storage protocols. The System x adapters
have iSCSI support for native OS and VM iSCSI initiators and for iSCSI boot.

All adapters support IPsec and MACsec offloads that provides full 10 Gbps line-rate performance in
secured environments.

The following table compares the features of adapters.

Intel X520 and X540 Dual Port 10 GbE Adapters for System x and ThinkServer 6