News

posted on 07 April 2008 02:05

Chelsio's TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) now fully support's Microsoft Windows' TCP Chimney architecture meaning servers execute TCP transactions faster and have more CPU time available for application processing.

When processing iSCSI storage area network (SAN) I/O requests a server has to create TCP/IP packets containing the iSCSI commands and data. This takes up server CPU time, reducing application responsiveness. By transferring the TCP/IP processing to specialised hardware; a TOE, the server remains fully focused on satisfying application processing needs.

The TCP Chimney architecture in Windows diverts a TCP processing task from the CPU to the Chelsio T3 TOE which, using Alacritech technology, manages the requests and sends them out over a 10 gigabit Ethernet link. Incoming TCP/IP packets are dealt with in the reverse sequence.

Chelsio says its TOE technology doubles network throughput and improves server CPU utilisation up to eight times. Kianoosh Naghshineh, Chelsio president and CEO, said: "Our T3 10GbE solution addresses the performance acceleration requirements of CIFS, iSCSI and general networking applications. ... using Chimney results in higher bandwidth, lower CPU utilizations (by TCP processing), lower server power consumption, and lower (network) latencies."

The Chimney TOE adapters are shipping now and priced at $1,795 for a S310e-SR-C adapter and $795 for a S302e-C model.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}