Neterion, Inc., the industry pioneer of I/O Virtualization (IOV) in 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) adapters for server and storage environments, announced today the launch of a developer program for hardware and software partners, allowing early access to its industry-leading I/O Virtualization technology.
With this program, developers will have access to a special X3110 Product Development Kit (PDK), including the following components:
- Engineering-level documentation, pre-release firmware to program 'special' modes of operation, and the full suite of Neterion software drivers
- Regular web-downloadable pre-release software updates (not available to the general public)
- The hardware kit is available in two flavors: -- X3110 SR PDK -- Two X3110 10 GbE adapters with SR fiber optic connectivity
- One 3-meter LC to LC optical cable
- X3110 DA PDK -- Two X3110 10 GbE adapters with DA copper connectivity
- One 3-meter DA twinax cable
The Neterion X3110 PDK is based on the company's 10 Gigabit Ethernet E3100 controller series. The E3100 series allows one adapter to appear to the server as multiple independent 10 GbE adapters, each with Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Neterion's unique IOV architecture provides four modes of virtualization operation, with 17 hardware-based fully independent bi-directional paths allowing traffic to be classified, prioritized, and queued at line-rate. Its multiple virtual paths can be load-balanced and reset independently. The E3100 is also the first to comply with the PCI-SIG working group's extensions to PCIe, Single-Root (SR) and Multi-Root (MR) IOV. Neterion was a major contributor to this specification standard.
"With this developer program, we are reaching out to our partner community," stated Pat DiPietro, president and CEO of Neterion. "From the inception of the company and our very first 10 GbE controller, Neterion has pioneered I/O Virtualization. Our third generation 3100 series further demonstrates our leadership in IOV and we want to give our partners early access to our industry-leading features, so they can offer lower-cost and higher-flexibility I/O solutions for their most demanding customers."
The Neterion X3110 adapter can be used in several modes, for virtualized and non-virtualized environments:
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Standard single-function PCIe (one 10 GbE function per link)
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Standard multi-function PCIe (up to 8 functions with no modification of the Operating System or Hypervisor)
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Extended "ARI" (Alternative Requester ID) multi-function PCIe (up to 17 functions with no OS or Hypervisor modification)
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SR-IOV (Single-Root IOV, requiring updates to the software)
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MR-IOV (Multi-Root, requiring specific hardware and software developments to provide advanced "shared I/O" functionalities)
Neterion PCI-e functions are implemented as complete network devices rather than a subset of a network device. This model provides for using unmodified native device drivers in virtualized environments. It also supports direct hardware access from guests and eliminates the performance costs of virtualization, while preserving virtualization features like migration and privileged operations.
The X3110 SR fiber optic PDK is available today at an MSRP of $3,900; The X3110 DA copper twinax PDK is available today at an MSRP of $3,800. To apply to the developer program and order the PDK, contact Vince Correa at vince.correa@neterion.com, or by phone at +1 (408) 366-4634.