Product Brief Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 Network Connectivity Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 Dual- and Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet server adapters designed with performance enhancing features and new power management technologies Key Features Overview Halogen-free dual- or quad-port The new Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 family builds on Intels history of excel- Gigabit Ethernet adapters with lence in Ethernet products. Intel continues its market leadership with this new genera- copper or fiber interface options tion of PCIe* GbE network adapters. Built with the bridgeless Intel Ethernet Controller I350, these adapters represent the next step in the Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) networking Innovative power management features including Energy Efficient evolution for the enterprise and data center by introducing new levels of performance Ethernet (EEE) and DMA Coalescing through industry-leading enhancements for both virtualized and iSCSI Unified Network - for increased efficiency and reduced ing environments. This new family of adapters also includes new power management power consumption technologies such as Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) and DMA Coalescing (DMAC). Flexible I/O virtualization for port Flexible I/O Virtualization partitioning and quality of service (QoS) of up to 32 virtual ports The Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 family includes Intel Virtualization Technology for connectivity (Intel VT-c) to deliver I/O virtualization and Quality of Service (QoS) Scalable iSCSI performance deliver- features designed directly into the controller on the adapter. I/O virtualization advances ing cost-effective SAN connectivity network connectivity models used in todays servers to more efficient models by pro - High-performing bridgeless design viding Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP), multiple Rx/Tx queues, and on-controller QoS supporting PCI Express* Gen 2.1 functionality that can be used in both virtual and non-virtual server deployments. 5GT/s Reliable and proven Gigabit Ethernet By taking advantage of the PCI-SIG SR-IOV specification, Intel Ethernet products en - technology from Intel Corporation able Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP). With FPP, virtual controllers can be used by the Linux* host directly and/or assigned to virtual machines. With this port partitioning, administrators can create up to eight dedicated connections on a single Ethernet port for use in bare-metal and virtualized server deployments. In a bare-metal Linux server, host processes can be assigned to dedicated network resources to provide traffic isolation and balanced bandwidth allocation.In a virtualized environment, a VM can be assigned to a virtual consumption of an Ethernet connection by negotiating with controller to reduce the CPU overhead seen when using a a compliant EEE switch port to transition to a low power idle software-based network bridge by offloading network traffic (LPI) state. This reduces the controller power to approximately management to the controller. 50% of its normal operating power, saving power on the net- work port and the switch port. As soon as increased network Scalable iSCSI Performance traffic is detected, the controller and the switch quickly come An Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 with native iSCSI initia- back to full power to handle the increased network traffic. EEE tors built into Microsoft* Windows*, Linux*, and VMware* ESX is supported for both 1000BASE-T and 100BASE-TX. platforms provides a simple, dependable, cost-effective way DMA Coalescing to connect to iSCSI SANs. These native initiators are broadly Another power management technology that can reduce tested using multiple generations of operating systems, stor- power on the server platform is DMA Coalescing (DMAC). age systems, and OS tools to help ensure reliability and ease Typically, when a packet arrives at a server, DMA calls are of use. Standardizing on Intel Ethernet Adapters for iSCSI made to transfer the packet within the server. These calls enables administrators to use a single initiator, TCP/IP stack, wake up the processor, memory and other system compo- and a common set of management tools and IT policies. In nents from a lower power state in order to perform the addition, Intel Ethernet Server Adapters include a number tasks required to handle the incoming packet. of hardware features designed to accelerate iSCSI traffic and enhance data processing. For example, TCP segmentation Based on the configurable DMAC settings, incoming packets offload and checksum offload capabilities help reduce proces - are buffered momentarily before any DMA calls are made. This sor usage, increase throughput, and deliver exceptional iSCSI enables the controller to intelligently identify opportunities to performance. Finally, using native OS initiators, an Intel Ether- batch multiple packets together so that when components are net Server Adapter I350 supports the CRC-32 digest instruc- wakened from lower power states they can efficiently handle tion set included with Intel Xeon processor products, which the batched packets at the same time. This enables platform improves transmission reliability and delivers an enterprise- components to remain in lower power states longer, which class iSCSI solution. can dramatically reduce platform energy consumption. DMAC synchronizes DMA calls across all controller ports to ensure Power Management Technologies maximum power savings. Today, companies everywhere are looking for ways to de- crease energy consumption across the enterprise to reduce Software Tools and Management costs and environmental impact, while at the same time solv- Intel Advanced Network Services (Intel ANS) include new ing increasingly important power density challenges. Thats teaming technologies and techniques such as Virtual Machine why Intel has introduced new, advanced Power Management Load-Balancing (VMLB) for Hyper-V environments. Today, Technologies (PMTs) with the Intel Ethernet Server Adapter Intel ANS includes a variety of teaming configurations for up I350 family that enable enterprises to configure power op - to eight adapters, support for mixed vendors server adapters tions on the adapter and more effectively manage their power teaming and includes support for 802.1q VLANs, making Intel consumption. ANS one of the most capable and comprehensive tools for supporting server adapter teaming. Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) Additionally, Intel PROSet for Windows* Device Manager and The Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350 family supports the PROset CL extends driver functionality to provide additional IEEE802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) standard so that, reliability and Quality of Service features and configuration. during periods of low network activity, EEE reduces the power High High Power Power Low Low As shown by the red line, components have With more time between DMA calls, com- less time between DMA calls to reach and ponents can reach lower power states and Source: Intel Labs stay in lower power states. remain in them longer. Energy Efficient Ethernet reduces the con- troller power to approximately 50% of its normal operating level. 2 2