Network Interface Cards

Intel continues its legacy of Ethernet leadership by introducing the next generation 10 Gb/s family of silicon to support the growing 10GBASE-T ecosystem.

The Intel® Ethernet Controller X550 family is the low cost single-chip 10GBASE-T controller of choice to broadly deploy 10 GbE in platform designs. Now with support for LAN, FCoE, and iSCSI traffic with added support for VXLAN and NVGRE - 10GBASE-T is the most flexible connectivity for all of your networking requirements. Innovation continues with Intel's second generation integrated 10GBASE-T MAC+PHY, which drives down both cost and power enabling the most cost effective deployment of 10 GbE in the data center. With 10GBASE-T, migration to 10 GbE is dramatically simplified with backward compatibility with your existing GbE network infrastructure.

10GBASE-T Simplifies the Transition from 1 GbE to 10 GbE

The X550 controller provides up to two integrated 10GBASE-T PHYs providing 10 Gb/s of throughput that are also backwards compatible with legacy GbE switches and Cat6A cabling. The ability to auto-negotiate between 100 Mb/s, 1 GbE, and 10 GbE speeds provide the backwards compatibility for a smooth transition and easy migration to 10 GbE.

In addition, the X550 controller also supports NBASE-T* technology. NBASE-T technology can increase network speeds of 2.5 Gb/s or 5 Gb/s using existing CAT 5e/CAT 6 cables at lengths up to 100 m.

Intel's NBASE-T technology can be firmware upgraded to support the emerging IEEE 802.3bz specification.

Exciting New Data Center Models

More than just a 10 times per-port increase in performance by using the X550 controller versus a standard 1 GbE controller opens doors for exciting new usage models, including unified networking, I/O virtualization, and flexible port partitioning.

A Complete Unified Network Solution

Converging data and storage onto one fabric eliminates the need for multiple adapters and cables per server. Furthermore, 10 GbE provides the bandwidth to converge these multiple fabrics into a single wire. A key capability that makes all this possible is traffic class separation provided by DCB. DCB provides a collection of standards for additional QoS functionality such as lossless delivery, congestion notification, prioritybased flow control, and priority groups. This enables the Intel X550 to provide a one-wire solution with virtual pipes for the different classes of traffic:

• Data: best effort delivery of standard LAN traffic.
• Storage: NAS or SAN including lossless FCoE and iSCSI.
• Management: Guaranteed connectivity of data center IP management

Unified Networking Principles

Intel's unified networking solutions are built on the principles that have made us successful in Ethernet:

• Open architecture integrates networking with the server, enabling IT managers to reduce complexity and overhead while enabling a flexible and scalable data center network.
• Intelligent offloads lower cost and power while delivering the application performance that customers expect.
• Proven unified networking is built on trusted Intel Ethernet technology, enabling customers to deploy FCoE or iSCSI with the same quality used in their traditional Ethernet network.

Intel's unified networking solutions are enabled through a combination of Intel Ethernet products along with network and storage protocols integrated in the operating systems. This combination provides proven reliability with the performance that data center administrators around the world have come to expect from Intel.

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Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA2 - PCI Express* (PCIe) v3.0, x8, Dual Port - Optical Fiber - 10 Gigabit Ethernet Learn More

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.

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.

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The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I210 builds on Intel's history of excellence in Ethernet Products. This adapter represents the next step in the Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) networking evolution for the enterprise and data centers offering Audio-Video-Bridging (AVB) support, along with power management technologies such as Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) and DMA Coalescing (DMAC).

Audio-Video Bridging (AVB)

The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I210 supports IEEE 802.1Qav Audio-Video Bridging (AVB) for customers requiring tightly controlled media stream synchronization, buffering, and reservation. The 802.1Qav is part of the AVB specification that provides a way to guarantee bounded latency and latency variation for time sensitive traffic and includes:

• Timing and synchronization for time-specific applications (802.1AS) Stream Reservation (SR) protocol to guarantee the resources needed for Audio/Video (AV) streams (802.1Qat)
• Forwarding and queueing enhancements for time sensitive streams (802.1Qav).

Performance Optimization

The I210 contains four transmit and four receive queues. These queues offer Error Correcting Memory (ECC) protection for improved data reliability. The adapter efficiently manages packets with minimum latency by combining parallel and pipelined logic architectures optimized for these independent transmit and receive queues. These queues, combined with Receive Side Scaling (RSS) and Message Signal Interrupt Extension (MSI-X) support, optimize the performance on servers with multi-core processors.

Power Management Technologies

Intel has introduced new, Advanced Power Management Technologies (PMTs) that enable enterprises to configure power options on the adapter and more effectively manage power consumption.

Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)

Supports the IEEE802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) standard. During periods of low network activity, EEE reduces the power consumption of an Ethernet connection by negotiating with a compliant EEE switch port to transition to a low power idle (LPI) state.

The controller power is reduced by approximately 50 percent of its normal operating power, saving power on the network port and the switch port. When increased network traffic is detected, the controller and the switch quickly come back to full power to handle the increased network traffic. EEE is supported for both 1000BASE-T and 100BASE-TX.

DMA Coalescing

Another power management technology that can reduce power on the server platform is DMA Coalescing (DMAC). Typically, when a packet arrives at the adapter, a DMA request is initiated in order to place the packet into host (or server) memory. This transaction wakes up the processor, memory, and other system components from a lower power state in order to perform the tasks required to handle the incoming packet.

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The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I210 builds on Intel's history of excellence in Ethernet Products. This adapter represents the next step in the Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) networking evolution for the enterprise and data centers offering Audio-Video-Bridging (AVB) support, along with power management technologies such as Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) and DMA Coalescing (DMAC).

Audio-Video Bridging (AVB)

The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I210 supports IEEE 802.1Qav Audio-Video Bridging (AVB) for customers requiring tightly controlled media stream synchronization, buffering, and reservation. The 802.1Qav is part of the AVB specification that provides a way to guarantee bounded latency and latency variation for time sensitive traffic and includes:

• Timing and synchronization for time-specific applications (802.1AS) Stream Reservation (SR) protocol to guarantee the resources needed for Audio/Video (AV) streams (802.1Qat)
• Forwarding and queueing enhancements for time sensitive streams (802.1Qav).

Performance Optimization

The I210 contains four transmit and four receive queues. These queues offer Error Correcting Memory (ECC) protection for improved data reliability. The adapter efficiently manages packets with minimum latency by combining parallel and pipelined logic architectures optimized for these independent transmit and receive queues. These queues, combined with Receive Side Scaling (RSS) and Message Signal Interrupt Extension (MSI-X) support, optimize the performance on servers with multi-core processors.

Power Management Technologies

Intel has introduced new, Advanced Power Management Technologies (PMTs) that enable enterprises to configure power options on the adapter and more effectively manage power consumption.

Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)

Supports the IEEE802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) standard. During periods of low network activity, EEE reduces the power consumption of an Ethernet connection by negotiating with a compliant EEE switch port to transition to a low power idle (LPI) state.

The controller power is reduced by approximately 50 percent of its normal operating power, saving power on the network port and the switch port. When increased network traffic is detected, the controller and the switch quickly come back to full power to handle the increased network traffic. EEE is supported for both 1000BASE-T and 100BASE-TX.

DMA Coalescing

Another power management technology that can reduce power on the server platform is DMA Coalescing (DMAC). Typically, when a packet arrives at the adapter, a DMA request is initiated in order to place the packet into host (or server) memory. This transaction wakes up the processor, memory, and other system components from a lower power state in order to perform the tasks required to handle the incoming packet.

Learn More