5.2 Network access 5.2.1 Dedicated adapters 5.2.2 Virtual Ethernet adapters 5.2.3 VIOS Shared Ethernet Adapter 5.2.4 Virtual Network Interface Cards Chapter 5. IBM AIX and IBM PowerVM features  131 This section includes a short description of virtualization features, protocols, adapters, access  methods, and devices that are available to get network access. AIX has  native  support for physical Ethernet network adapters that have four ports and  speeds of 1, 10, 25, 40, and 100 Gb. With this type of virtual adapter, AIX LPARs can send and receive network traffic without  having a physical Ethernet adapter. The PHYP provides a software implementation of an  Ethernet switch that is compliant with standard IEEE 802.1Q. This switch allows operating  systems (OSs) running in LPARs to communicate by using standard networking protocols. LPARs can have multiple Virtual Ethernet adapters. Each Virtual Ethernet adapter is  connected to a PHYP software switch. The PHYP is started for the transmission of each  Ethernet frame and copies the data between LPAR memory areas. Virtual Ethernet adapters  and the PHYP switch provide the means for efficient inter-partition communication at memory  speed. Because the virtual switch functions are provided by the PHYP, communication  between LPARs does not require configuration of a VIOS. The VIOS Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) function provides connectivity to external networks  for LPARs that have only Virtual Ethernet adapters. The SEA acts like a layer 2 bridge to the  physical adapters. This type of virtual adapter allows AIX LPARs to send and receive network traffic by using  virtual functions that are incorporated in single root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV)  capable physical network adapters. This advanced type of virtual adapter supports quality of  service (QoS), and you can define a maximum of six backing physical adapters. AIX can have  redundant  network access by using the methods that are described in the  following sections. This method combines one primary and one backup adapter. When the primary interface  fails, the traffic is rerouted to the backup adapter. The adapters that are used for network  interface backup (NIB) can be physical, virtual, or a combination of both. These network port aggregation technologies allow multiple Ethernet adapters to be grouped  to form a single pseudo Ethernet device. The pseudo Ethernet device has the network  bandwidth of all aggregated adapters and continues to be operational if individual adapters  fail. Etherchannel and IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation Network Interface Backup