Virtual Ethernet enables communication between inter-partitions on the same server, without requiring each partition to have a physical network adapter. You can define in-memory connections between partitions that are handled at the system level (for example, interaction between POWER Hypervisor and the operating systems). These connections exhibit characteristics similar to physical high-bandwidth Ethernet connections and support the industry standard protocols (such as IPv4, IPv6, ICMP, or ARP). Virtual Ethernet also enables multiple partitions to share physical adapters for access to external networks using Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA).