Performance Networking ™ Server Blade Summit March 23, 2005

2 Ethernet is Dead: The Series Episode I: The Lord of the Ring  Token Ring Episode II: Return to the Disk  Fibre Channel Episode III: The Empire Strikes Back  ATM to the Desktop Episode IV: The Rise of the “S” (serial, speed, scalable)  Infiniband as the ubiquitous interconnect Episode V: The Net Who Would be King  Myrinet, Quadrics, Infiniband  TOE, RDMA/IP The Ethernet ecosystem has always evolved to address the needs of the user community. It always rises to the challenge of other technologies.

3 Lower Latency by reducing time spent on System Calls CPU Cycles TCP/IP Processing System Call Ethernet is evolving again  Higher Bandwidth – 10GigE  Lower Latency Lower latency NICs & Host-side improvements.  Improved Switching Infrastructure Need low-cost, low-latency switches. Likely to arrive in the blade environment before we see them elsewhere. Ethernet: Will our Hero Survive?

4 Ethernet: The Precision I/O Contribution Extend the life and investment of existing GigE networks  Software only solution significantly increases GigE performance today  Available for Beta testing today!!! Transparently & dramatically increases server application capacity  Higher I/O throughput  Improved CPU utilization / Higher transaction capacity  Lower latency Non-disruptive migration path to future 10GigE networks  10GigE HW/SW solution available soon  Only required on one end of the connection - no client changes  Supports incremental deployment - one server at a time No new fabric, protocols, packet formats, or infrastructure required No application or operating system changes required

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