The X3522 adapter has a single port per cage when using SFP cables or a pair of ports per cage with DSFP cables:
- If the adapter is using SFP cables then each port is presented to the host as a separate PF and the operating system treats the ports independently.
- If the adapter is using DSFP cables then there are still two PFs but each PF presents a pair of ports. The X3 drivers still treat each port independently – that is, there is no difference to the user between ports that share a PF and ports that do not.
Note: The rest of this document ignores the fact that some network
ports share a PF (this should be invisible to applications), and only shows what is
needed to use a single port on the NIC. For applications that need to interface to
multiple ports, all the structures are duplicated as each port uses separate resources
and interfaces.