A shared Ethernet adapter is a Virtual I/O Server component that bridges a physical Ethernet adapter and Ethernet adapters. When using a Shared Ethernet Adapter, logical partitions on the virtual network can share access to the physical network and communicate with stand-alone servers and logical partitions on other systems. The Shared Ethernet Adapter eliminates the need for each client logical partition to a dedicated physical adapter to connect to the external network. [Source: Adapted from IBM]
