S1200V3RPL, GbE I350-T2 and SR-IOV

[LX1]

Hi,

I was looking into the S1200V3RPL motherboard and I350-T2 dual port Gigabit Ethernet card for my new ESXi server (Xeon E3 1230v3 processor). I was intrigued by the SR-IOV technique, supported by the I350-T2 network card. However, I could not find definitive answers to a couple of questions.

- Does the S1200V3RPL board support SR-IOV?

If it does, it seems that this setup fullfills all the criteria set in:

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-EE03DC6F-32CA-42EF-98FC-12FDE06C0BE0.html http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-EE03DC6F-32CA-42EF-98FC-12FDE06C0BE0.html

But then the I350-T2 is not listed as supported device using SR-IOV in ESXi 5.5. Does anyone know wether I'd be able to create VF's in ESXi? (Is the device unsupported but working? Or will it just not work alltogether?). I know the device itself is supported in ESXi 5.5, but I specificly need the SR-IOV to work.

Thanks in advance,

Lew

[HSimo2]

Hi Lew,

I have an ESXi 5.5 host with the older S1200BTL motherboard and a v1 Xeon E3. The integrated NIC that ESXi has drivers for is the 82574L but I have a couple i350-T2 cards installed in slots.

I just had a look in the vSphere Web Client and it is showing SR-IOV Status as being Disabled for each i350 based vmnic where the 82574L is showing as "Not supported" so it looks optimistic.

It allowed me to enable SR-IOV but I didn't click OK to confirm the change as it wasn't a good time for me to reboot the host.

Howard

[LX1]

Thank you Howard, very optimistic indeed! One would think that if it works on the older series, it should definitely work on thisone.

[HSimo2]

I would tend to agree unless someone wiser than us says to the contrary.

I just checked a similarly configured ESXi 5.1 host with an I350-T4 and it is showing as not supported but it is currently running igb driver version 4.2.16.3 whereas the 5.5 host is running 5.0.5.1 so likely just a driver issue.

I'll try to get the driver on the 5.1 host upgraded over the next few days and see if the status changes to disabled.

I am now curious to try out SR-IOV myself so will test it this weekend and post back.

[LX1]

Looking forward to read about your findings, greatly appreciated.