System x3950 X6 (3837-BAx) - Emulex VFA5 ML2 10GbE SFP+

System x3950 X6 (3837-BAx) - Emulex VFA5 ML2 10GbE SFP+
Network Server
IBM

12 Jun 2014
141609

SUSE YES Certified for the following products:
Operating Systems:

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 & Intel64 with XEN Service Pack 3 for SUSE® SLES 11

Virtual Machines (Guests OS):

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 for x86
	Arch: 32pae	Mode: Paravirtualized	SP: Service Pack 3 for SUSE® SLES 11
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 & Intel64
	Arch: 64	Mode: Fully Virtualized	SP: Service Pack 3 for SUSE® SLES 11
Windows Server 2012 R2
	Arch: 64	Mode: Fully Virtualized
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 for x86
	Arch: 32	Mode: Fully Virtualized	SP: Service Pack 3 for SUSE® SLES 11
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 & Intel64
	Arch: 64	Mode: Paravirtualized	SP: Service Pack 3 for SUSE® SLES 11

Product Description
The IBM® System x3950 X6 server is an eight-socket 8U rack-mounted server that represents the sixth generation of the IBM Enterprise X-Architecture®. It delivers innovation with enhanced scalability, reliability, availability, and serviceability features to enable optimal performance for mission-critical databases, enterprise applications, and virtualized environments. The x3950 X6 packs numerous fault-tolerant and high-availability features into a high-density, 8U rack-optimized lid-less package that helps to significantly reduce the space that is needed to support massive network computing operations and simplify servicing. The x3950 X6 supports up to eight Intel® Xeon® E7-8800 v2 high-performance processors and up to 12 TB of memory.

Tested Configuration:

Computer Type:	Rack Mount
Mother Board Revision:	PASS 5
BIOS/uEFI:	UEFI: A8E107JUS - v1.00 (05/02/2014)
CPU:	8 Intel Xeon® Processor E7-8850 v2 2.30 GHz
RAM:	768 GB
Ports and Bus Types:	2 Serial 14 USB Ports 6 PCI Express X8 4 PCI Express X16
Video Adapter:	Matrox® MGA G200eR
Host Bus Adapter:	2 IBM ServeRAID M5210 SAS/SATA Controller , Serial SCSI (SAS)
Hard Disk Drive:	IBM 300GB 10K SAS 2.5-inch SFF HS HDD , Serial SCSI (SAS) IBM 300GB 10K SATA 2.5-inch SFF HS HDD , Serial ATA (SATA) IBM 600GB 10K SAS 2.5-inch 6Gbps SFF HS HDD , Serial SCSI (SAS)
Test Kit:	System Certification Kit 7.2.0-5.10

Config Notes

Kdump: the crash kernel reserved memory parameter in the elilo.conf file was changed from 128 to 256 (crashkernel=512M-:256M) for kdump to function correctly.
Tested as a 2-node scalable partition with 8 Compute Books. Hard disk configuration: RAID 0 and RAID 1.
Xen Hypervisor: the hypervisor was booted with following additional parameters: dom0_mem=20G dom0_max_vcpus=20.
Maintenance update: SLES 11 SP3 Xen maintenance update 8973 and kernel update 9105 (x86-64) are required and were installed during certification testing.
VM Driver Pack: All FV guests were tested with PV drivers installed. The SLES 11 SP3 drivers are included with the OS. The Windows 2012 R2 drivers are available from http://download.novell.com (VMDP-WIN-2.1.exe).
SUSE Driver Kit: The ibm_x6-sle11sp3-x86_64 driver kit is SUSE SolidDriver Program compliant. The driver kit was installed during the SLES install process as an initial bootable iso image. This driver must be downloaded and installed before the SLES install. To obtain the driver go to: http://drivers.suse.com/ibm/IBM-X6/sle11-sp3/install-readme.html.
Install: System installed using an external USB DVD drive; the OS was installed from DVD using the UEFI boot loader and elilo system configuration.
PCI Network Pass-Through: System was tested using PCI pass-through where one of the host network adapters was given to the FV SLES 11 SP3 x86-64 guest. One of the Intel® I350-T4 ML2 Quad Port GbE Adapters was used during this testing.

Referenced Bulletins
141517

Adapters and Drivers


Matrox® MGA G200eR
	Driver Type: Video Driver	Driver Name: mga_drv.so
	Driver Date: 30-Mar-2013	Driver Size: 190720
	Checksum: cbbe7ba695cb37835f3c7d4e79ec43c5
	Driver Version: 1.4.11

Intel I350-T4 ML2 Quad Port GbE Adapter
	Driver Type: LAN Driver	Driver Name: igb.ko
	Driver Date: 08-Apr-2014	Driver Size: 284943
	Checksum: cc1a3ad6612197dc55041bde03d1f15c
	Driver Version: 4.1.2-k

Emulex Corporation VFA5 ML2 Dual Port 10GbE SFP+ Adapter
	Driver Type: LAN Driver	Driver Name: be2net.ko
	Driver Date: 15-Apr-2014	Driver Size: 186716
	Checksum: ab4e5734c70932a2d28a80da5c5400e4
	Driver Version: 10.0.800.0

Broadcom® BCM5720 dual-port PCI Express® GbE Network Interface Controller
	Driver Type: LAN Driver	Driver Name: tg3.ko
	Driver Date: 08-Apr-2014	Driver Size: 243991
	Checksum: 4d35181985599f01c775032df8a33695
	Driver Version: 3.129

2 IBM ServeRAID M5210 SAS/SATA Controller
	Driver Type: HBA Driver	Driver Name: megaraid_sas.ko
	Driver Date: 13-Feb-2014	Driver Size: 1411836
	Checksum: 9502ee98c4520dbba9314ab16a4c51a8
	Driver Version: 06.600.20.00

The term SUSE "YES" Enterprise Certified applies only to the exact configuration documented in this bulletin. For more information on hardware exchange policies, please access the following document and view the Hardware Component Exchange Guide.

https://www.suse.com/product-certification/yes-certified/certification-requirements/

For more information regarding the specific test configuration, please contact:

IBM
For support regarding this specific configuration, please visit:
www.ibm.com

564578

System x3950 X6 (3837-BAx) - Emulex VFA5 ML2 10GbE SFP+ - Yes Bulletin 141609 | SUSE