Scenario: Configuring Shared Ethernet Adapter failover without using a dedicated control channel adapter

Use this scenario to help you to configure Shared Ethernet Adapter failover in the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) logical partitions without specifying the Control Channel attribute.

Situation

You are the system administrator responsible for planning and configuring the network in an environment with the VIOS running. You want to provide higher network availability to the client logical partition on the system. However, you do not want to use dedicated resources, such as a virtual Ethernet adapter and a virtual LAN that are required for the control channel adapter. This can be accomplished by configuring a Shared Ethernet Adapter in high availability mode in a VIOS logical partition without a dedicated control channel adapter.

Objective

The objective of this scenario is to configure a Shared Ethernet Adapter in high availability mode in the VIOS logical partitions without specifying the Control Channel attribute. This avoids the requirement of a dedicated virtual Ethernet adapter and a dedicated virtual LAN for the control channel adapter while you configure the Shared Ethernet Adapter in high availability mode.

Prerequisites and assumptions

  • The Hardware Management Console (HMC) was set up. For more information about Installing and configuring the Hardware Management Console , see Installing and configuring the Hardware Management Console.
  • You must understand the partitioning concepts as described in the Logical partitioning. For more information about Logical partitioning, see Logical partitioning.
  • You must understand what Shared Ethernet Adapter failover is and how it works. See Shared Ethernet Adapter failover.
  • The Power Hypervisor must be at Version 780, or later.
  • The VIOS must be at Version 2.2.3.0, or later.
Note: Even though the Power Hypervisor is at Version 780, configuring Shared Ethernet Adapter failover in the VIOS logical partitions, without specifying the Control Channel attribute is not supported on some of the servers, such as MMB servers and MHB servers.
An illustration showing a Shared Ethernet Adapter failover configuration without using a dedicated control channel adapter.

In this configuration, the default adapter of the Shared Ethernet Adapter that is illustrated as V1 in the figure, is used as control channel to manage the control channel traffic. A reserved virtual LAN is used for the control channel traffic. Multiple Shared Ethernet Adapters are configured in a high availability mode without a dedicated control channel adapter, and are supported in this configuration.

Shared Ethernet Adapter failover with load sharing can also be configured without a dedicated control channel adapter.

Parent topic: Scenarios: Configuring the Virtual I/O Server


Last updated: Thu, October 15, 2020