Chapter 1: Introduction; Advanced Features - SMC Networks Tiger Card SMC10GPCIe-10BT User Manual

Chapter 1: Introduction

The SMC Tiger Card™ 10G 10GBASE-T and XFP Ethernet Server Adapters combine
the speed and performance of cutting edge networking with the ease of deployment
and user friendliness of traditional Ethernet. The speed and efficiency of 10G Ethernet
enables the implementation of converged networking. Reducing the TCO (Total Cost
of Ownership), complexity of wiring, and simplifying management. SMC's VNIC
architecture provides the key to efficient server I/O and is flexible enough to be
applied to multiple server deployment scenarios. These deployment scenarios are:
Kernel Driver – This deployment uses a single instance of a VNIC interface for
standard operating drivers. This interface provides a performance-optimized path
for the kernel TCP/IP stack and contention-free access from the driver, resulting in
extremely low latency and competitive CPU efficiency.
Accelerated Virtual I/O - The second deployment scenario greatly improves I/O for
virtualized operating systems. The SMC VNIC architecture provides thousands of
protected interfaces to the host system, granting any application or virtualized
(guest) operating system direct access to the network hardware. This hypervisor
bypass technology, unique to SMC Ethernet controllers, is the only way to provide
solid I/O performance to virtualized guest operating systems.

Advanced Features

Virtual NIC Support - The core of SMC's technology. Protected VNIC interfaces
can be instantiated for each running guest operating system or application, giving it
a direct pipeline to the Ethernet network. This architecture provides the most
efficient way to maximize network and CPU efficiency. The SMC Ethernet controller
supports up to 4096 VNIC interfaces.
PCI Express - Implements PCI Express 1.1.
Plug-and-Play - Provides binary compatibility with all data center
and HPC applications.
10 Gigabit Ethernet - 10 times the throughput of 1G Ethernet, 10G enables the
ability to design a cost-effective, high-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet solution.
IP/UDP/TCP Checksum Offload - Calculation and validation for the checksums
found in IP, TCP and UDP headers. This feature saves a significant amount of
valuable CPU cycles.
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