Chiasso, Switzerland, February 11, 2010 – Allied Telesis has launched a high-performance virtualization Network Interface Card (NIC) for servers running virtual machines. The 2973T/4, an enhanced version of the 2973 family launched in November 2009, is a quad-port 1000T Gigabit PCIe x4 virtualization NIC. This card combines virtualization with high resiliency, offering more robust application performance across the network.
The operating system needed to perform as a virtual machine is complex, and whilst chipsets have been enhanced in recent years, it is still a significant task to create a true virtual machine. Queuing is a common issue with virtual machines, reducing performance as the host CPU performs the task of assembling/disassembling incoming messages, and sending them to the correct queue for each virtual machine. The 2973T/4 performs this task, as well as TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) functions, relieving the host CPU, and therefore increasing throughput significantly.
Melvyn Wray, Senior VP of Product Marketing EMEA at Allied Telesis said, « Resiliency is fundamental to the way IT networks are evolving and our strategy is to deliver highly resilient, cost-effective solutions to enterprise, metropolitan and carrier networks. The upgrade to the 2973 range is just one of the areas where we are enhancing our offering to meet customer demands. »
The 2973T/4 is powerful enough to achieve a throughput of up to 2 Gbps per link, allowing the network to run mission-critical applications effectively. It is MSI-x (Message Signal Interrupt) capable, which allows it to control multiple network queues, one for each virtual machine, to conform to the latest PCIe standard. The 2973T/4 also supports iSCSI v1.0 and can be an iSER Host Bus Adaptor (HBA) initiator, allowing the main computer to be connected to network storage devices. The AT-2973T/4 is available from March 2010.