Physical network names

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With physical network names, you can assign a string to parts of your network that are physically isolated. Assigning such strings segments your network into distinct parts, such as a production and a development segment. When a virtual machine is associated with one network segment, PowerVC ensures that is never moved, through DRO, for example, to a different network. Thus, the virtual machine routes only network traffic through the appropriate network segment. In PowerVC, the way that the physical network name is set depends on the type of network you are using.

Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA)

SEA networks in PowerVC do not use physical network names. They use host-network-mapping, which is a different way of telling PowerVC which physical Ethernet ports to use for which virtual networks.

Single-root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV)

In SR-IOV networks, PowerVC uses physical network names to set port labels. Port labels assign a string that uniquely identifies different segments of the physical network. You can enter a physical network name on the user interface for SR-IOV networks. This physical network name is then used to set the PowerVM® port labels. Setting port labels ensures that virtual machines are always connected to the same physical infrastructure throughout deploys and migrations.

Note: For Live Partition Mobility and remote restart operations to work seamlessly, it is recommended to set the physical network name or port labels in PowerVC after registering the host. Having the port label as None or empty in HMC or NovaLink may cause unexpected failures during these operations.