Overview
The Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710 addresses the demanding needs of an agile data center by providing unmatched features for both server and network virtualization, flexibility for LAN and SAN networks, and proven, reliable performance. The Intel® Ethernet 700 Series Network Adapters. These adapters are the foundation for server connectivity, providing broad interoperability, critical performance optimizations, and increased agility for Communications, Cloud, and Enterprise IT network solutions. • Interoperability - Multiple speeds and media types for broad compatibility backed by extensive testing and validation. • Optimization - Intelligent offloads and accelerators to unlock network performance in servers with Intel® Xeon® processors. • Agility - Both Kernel and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) drivers for scalable packet processing. Intel® Ethernet 700 Series delivers networking performance across a wide range of network port speeds through intelligent offloads, sophisticated packet processing, and quality open source drivers.
Key Features
•PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0, x8 • Network Virtualization offloads including VxLAN, GENEVE, NVGRE, MPLS, and VxLANGPE with Network Service Headers (NSH) • Intel® Ethernet Flow Director for hardware based application traffic steering • Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) enables increased packet processing efficiency for NFV and Cloud deployments • Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) optimized for efficient packet processing •Excellent small packet performance for network appliances and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) • Intelligent offloads to enable high performance on servers with Intel® Xeon® processors • I/O virtualization innovations for maximum performance in a virtualized server
All Intel® Ethernet 700 Series Network Adapters include these feature-rich technologies: Flexible and Scalable I/O for Virtualized Infrastructures Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT), delivers outstanding I/O performance in virtualized server environments. I/O bottlenecks are reduced through intelligent offloads, enabling near-native performance and VM scalability. These offloads include Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) and Flexible Port Partitioning using SR-IOV with a common Virtual Function driver for networking traffic per Virtual Machine (VM). Host-based features supported include: VMDQ for Emulated Path: VMDQ, enables a hypervisor to represent a single network port as multiple network ports that can be assigned to the individual VMs. Traffic handling is offloaded to the network controller, delivering the benefits of port partitioning with little to no administrative overhead by the IT staff. SR-IOV for Direct Assignment: Adapter-based isolation and switching for various virtual station instances enables optimal CPU usage in virtualized environments. • Up to 128 virtual functions (VFs), each VF can support a unique and separate data path for I/O related functions within the PCI Express hierarchy. • Use of SR-IOV with a networking device, for example, allows the bandwidth of a single port (function) to be partitioned into smaller slices that can be allocated to specific VMs or guests, via a standard interface. Intel® Ethernet Adaptive Virtual Function (Intel® Ethernet AVF): Customers deploying mass-scale VMs or containers for their network infrastructure now have a common VF driver. This driver eases SR-IOV hardware upgrades or changes, preserves base-mode functionality in hardware and software, and supports an advanced set of features in the Intel® Ethernet 700 Series. Enhanced Network Virtualization Overlays (NVO) Network virtualization has changed the way networking is done in the data center, delivering accelerations across a wide range of tunneling methods. VxLAN, GENEVE, NVGRE, MPLS, and VxLAN-GPE with NSH Offloads: These stateless offloads preserve application performance for overlay networks, and the network traffic can be distributed across CPU cores, increasing network throughput
Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP) FPP leverages the PCI-SIG SR-IOV specification. Virtual controllers can be used by the Linux host directly and/or assigned to virtual machines. • Assign up to 63 Linux host processes or virtual machines per port to virtual functions. • Control the partitioning of per-port bandwidth across multiple dedicated network resources, ensuring balanced QoS by giving each assigned virtual controller equal access to the port's bandwidth. Network administrators can also rate limit each of these services to control how much of the pipe is available to each process. Greater Intelligence and Performance for NFV and Cloud deployments Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) customizable packet filtering, along with enhanced Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), support advanced packet forwarding and highly-efficient packet processing for both Cloud and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) workloads. • DDP enables workload-specific optimizations, using the programmable packet-processing pipeline. Additional protocols can be added to the default set to improve packet processing efficiency that results in higher throughput and reduced latency. New protocols can be added or modified on-demand and applied at runtime using Software Defined Firmware or APIs, eliminating the need to reset or reboot the server. This not only keeps the server and VMs up, running, and computing, it also increases performance for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that process network traffic that is not included in the default firmware. Download DDP Profiles • DPDK provides a programming framework for Intel® processors and enables faster development of high-speed data packet networking applications. Advanced Traffic Steering Intel® Ethernet Flow Director (Intel® Ethernet FD) is an advanced traffic steering capability. Large numbers of flow affinity filters direct receive packets by their flows to queues for classification, load balancing, and matching between flows and CPU cores. Steering traffic into specific queues can eliminate context switching required within the CPU. As a result, Intel® Ethernet FD significantly increases the number of transactions per second and reduces latency for cloud applications like memcached
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