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February 20, 2007 - From the operating system to the processor to the network, Sun's innovative technologies have always led the way. And today Sun announced a new silicon innovation, introducing its Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology. This new network interface technology is the first to optimize application performance by optimizing I/O throughput within environments that utilize parallel threads. Sun was the first major vendor to offer workstations with 100Mb/s performance and the first to offer servers with 1Gb/s performance. These innovations enabled users and system administrators take advantage of the most recent technologies as they became available, creating a competitive advantage by enabling faster, more efficient networks. Today Sun again demonstrates that innovation matters, by offering a complete chip multithreading environment (CMT) across the networking stack--from the operating system to the processor to the network wire. With 10Gb/s bandwidth across the stack, businesses can provide services to customers faster and more efficiently, lowering overall costs. The Sun Multithreaded Networking Card is the first product to implement the Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology--and is the first 10Gb/s network interface card (NIC) from a major vendor. 10x the Throughput
Many of today's services--such as data warehousing, disaster recovery, and cluster computing--demand extremely high throughput. The Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology delivers the performance those applications need--securely and cost-efficiently. "Metaphorically, you can view the Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology as an 'impedance matching device' that extends the thread parallelism from the OS, through the processor, and all the way to the network wire," says Shimon Muller, Sun distinguished engineer. Sun's silicon innovation represents a revolutionary multithreaded approach to connecting processors to the network. Sun is now the only vendor that can deliver a complete multi-core, multithreaded computing environment optimized for network throughput, starting with the Solaris OS, extending to the UltraSPARC T1processor, and running across the network interface. While Sun's new multithreaded 10Gb/s Ethernet technology is optimized for CMT environments, it improves network performance for all processors. "The Solaris OS has been a multithreaded system for years, and the latest UltraSPARC processors offer powerful chip multithreading," says Sunay Tripathi, Sun distinguished engineer. "But what has been missing is extending multithreading into the I/O environment and networking space." Now the tight integration between the Solaris OS, the CMT processors, and the new Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology enables Sun to deliver an integrated, optimized network environment with unmatched throughput. Ariel Hendel, Sun distinguished engineer, explains that "The hardware /software interface up until now was based on first queuing packets into the system and then distributing and processing them. But with this new 10Gb/s technology, we move to a distribute then queue model, and that makes all the difference when you want to scale, apply policy, and so on." The technology also accelerates performance for x64 systems running Linux or Windows because the trend towards doubling the number of processor cores per socket is the dominant force across the server industry. Sooner or later all multi-core processors and all operating systems experience the need to distribute the network load within the system. Sun will begin shipping systems later this year with dual 10Gb/s ports on the processor. Eventually, Sun will offer 10Gb technology across its entire product line, including blades, switches, cards, and motherboards. Sun x8 Express Adapter and Project Crossbow
The Sun Multithreaded Networking Card boosts performance by optimizing throughput in parallel-thread environments. In tandem with the Solaris OS and CMT processors, it helps deliver 10Gb/s Ethernet throughout the network stack. What's more, the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card delivers 10x the throughput at one-third the cost per gigabit (based on 10 1Gb/s NICs to achieve the same total throughput). In addition to the 10Gb/s performance, the card offers load balancing and fine-grained control to optimize resources for applications, services, and users. Project Crossbow, one of the leading OpenSolaris projects, enables Solaris to take full advantage of the new virtualization functionality that the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card offers, such as hardware classification, multiple Receive/Transmit rings, and DMA channels. "The unique combination of Solaris with Project Crossbow, CMT with LDOMs and state-of-the-art networking with this new network interface technology allows us to build a killer multithreaded machine optimized for network-facing applications," says Muller. Some of the features of Project Crossbow include:
"It's a superhighway metaphor," says Tripathi. "Project Crossbow and this new network interface technology instill a lane discipline' on I/O in the 10Gb/s environment. Traffic flows more smoothly when it's based on policies and services." Learn More
Sun's industry-leading experience with multithreaded systems ensures that the Sun 10 GbE Networking Technology will remain unique and best-of-breed. Only Sun delivers these benefits from the OS to the processor to the network wire. "This 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology is the kind of innovation you might expect to see from a startup, not a large company like Sun" says Tripathi. "Yet we like to think of ourselves as a very big startup--one dedicated to innovation and passionate about solving problems." For more information, go to http://www.sun.com/products/networking/ethernet/10gigethernet/index.xml |
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