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| Maximize Performance with Intel® 10 Gigabit Ethernet Solutions |
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The growing demand for 10 Gigabit Ethernet
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10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) has moved past the early adoption stage and is rapidly becoming the mainstay for backbones within enterprise and service provider networks. The escalating deployments of multi-core processor-based servers and demanding applications such as high performance computing (HPC), database clusters, and video on demand are driving the need for 10GbE connections.
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| 10GbE will also help facilitate the growing adoption of server virtualization and consolidation and storage over Ethernet. However, as servers transmit and receive larger amounts of network data than ever before, the processing load on the system will also increase. Intel's new 10GbE controller, the Intel® 82598EB 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, is optimized for multi-core Intel® Xeon® processor-based systems to ensure fast, power-efficient solutions for a broad range of applications, including virtualized server environments, blade servers, and copper-based products for volume deployment.
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| Optimized for multi-core processors |
Today's resource-intensive applications running on multi-core Intel Xeon processor-based servers are driving the need not only for greater networking bandwidth, but also for more efficient processing of network data. The greater bandwidth of 10GbE will meet the throughput requirements for virtualized server environments, high-volume data transactions, and real-time technologies such as VOIP and video on demand. The greater amounts of network data, however, will require more efficient processing.
Intel's next-generation 10GbE controller supports a number of latency-lowering features that are optimized for new multi-core Intel Xeon processor-based platforms. These features distribute network data processing among multiple cores in a system.
MSI-X uses multiple queues, or "vectors", to load-balance interrupts and relieve bottlenecks. These vectors can drive interrupt messages to multiple processor cores, while the previous-generation technology (MSI) passed interrupts to a single core only. When vectors are bound to specific processors, the Ethernet controller sends interrupt messages to those processors only, allowing the other processors to ignore the message.
Receive-Side Scaling (Scalable I/O in Linux*) directs packets to different queues in the Ethernet controller without the need for reordering. Incoming packets are first segregated into flows, and those packet flows can be assigned to a specific processor or core.
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| Optimized for virtualization |
As IT departments look to reduce the number of underutilized servers and lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), the number of virtualized server deployments continues to rise. The benefits of server virtualization and consolidation are clear: combining multiple servers in a single physical server lowers energy requirements and makes use of processing power that would have gone unused in a single-application server.
Another key driver of server virtualization and consolidation is the growing adoption of multi-core processor-based platforms. With more processing power and greater energy efficiency than previous generation platforms, these servers can support a larger number of Virtual Machines (VMs), allowing IT departments to realize even greater savings.
Conversely, more VMs means more traffic on the server, and with the increased bandwidth of 10GbE, virtualized server environments will require more efficient network data processing. Currently the software switch in the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) routes individual packets to and from the Virtual Machines (VMs) running on the system, resulting in significant delays in network packet processing.
Intel's Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) technology provides multiple hardware queues and offload features that can be used to reduce the software overhead associated with sharing a single networking controller between multiple virtual machines. With VMDq, individual hardware queues are associated with the simulated network interfaces of the running VMs, so the Ethernet controller itself performs the routing of received packets, relieving the software switch of these duties and substantially lowering the overhead.
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| Driving storage over Ethernet |
The fast growth in storage capacity coupled with server virtualization has brought the need for the Storage Area Network (SAN) to the forefront, and technologies such as iSCSI are leading the charge for storage over Ethernet. In addition, a new storage paradigm, referred to as "unified storage," which would include Fibre Channel and other storage technologies over Ethernet, is emerging.
Limited bandwidth and TCP processing overhead are two of the key factors that have limited the adoption of iSCSI. However, today's multi-core processor-based platforms have more than enough power to handle these workloads, and 10GbE bandwidth provides the throughput that has been lacking. Additionally, advanced QoS features such as priority groups and per priority pause provide the guaranteed delivery required by storage solutions.
The Intel's new 10GbE controller includes support for iSCSI acceleration and advanced features for unified storage connectivity. The controller enables fast and reliable networked storage with native iSCSI support with Microsoft, Linux*, and VMWare operating systems as well as support for iSCSI remote boot. Priority groups and per priority pause support are also implemented in the controller.
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| Optimized to maximize performance |
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The growth in 10 Gigabit Ethernet will enable greater deployments of virtualized servers and Ethernet SANs, providing unparalleled throughput. These performance improvements come at a cost, however, as servers will be forced to handle more network data than ever before. Optimized for multi-core platforms, virtualized environments, and storage over Ethernet, the Intel 82598EB 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller provides the throughput and traffic processing optimizations for the next generation of data centers. |
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