Sun introduced a new network card, Sun Multithreaded Networking Card, and a new interface for chip multi-threading (CMT) environments, the Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology.

Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology is the first network interface specifically designed to accelerate multi-threaded application performance by optimizing I/O throughput within environments that utilize parallel threads. It works by employing multiple Direct Memory Access (DMA) channels to reduce the need for CPU resources for I/O processing. It is also designed to take advantage of the Solaris OS threaded design for maximum throughput, regardless of the processor.

Combined with SPARCR or X64 based multi-core servers, the Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology can deliver application performance improvements of up to four times Sun's current network interfaces and has significantly higher throughput than the competition, according to the press release.

Sun Multithreaded Networking Card can deliver up to ten times the throughput at one-third the cost per gigabit, as compared to the equivalent number of 1Gb Ethernet cards, according to Sun. The Sun Multithreaded Networking Card features dual 10Gb Ethernet ports that can deliver a true line-rate of 10Gb when used with a CMT server such as the Sun FireTM T1000 and Sun FireTM T2000 servers. The card supports Linux now and will support Windows in the future.

Sun plans to incorporate its unique Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology across all product lines, including in future processors, motherboards, blades and switches. It will be offered an an option, whether for systems based on Niagara or Intel or AMD x86 processors.

The Niagara 2 processor (scheduled to be introduced in the second half of 2007) will incorporate the networking technology directly on the processor.

According to Rick Merritt's report on EE Times, the approach from Sun "fragments the emerging field of 10 Gbit Ethernet products" because it classifies and assigns traffic flows to as many as 24 threads in a server instead of using specialized hardware called TCP offload engines (TOEs) favored by many network companies. Sun and Intel are "rolling out their own approaches that rely on unique features in their CPUs," which will reduce the market for chips using the TOE standards. See the EE Times.com report for more technical details. [...read more...]

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