Chelsio Delivers 40GbE iWARP RDMA For Windows Server 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Chelsio Communications, a leading provider of high performance Ethernet solutions, today announced the release of its Windows Server 2012 NDK driver for RDMA enabled SMB Direct. Chelsio's high performance storage adapters enable a converged interconnect solution that simultaneously supports a complete suite of networking and storage protocols, as well as Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V for virtualized applications.

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Chelsio's Ethernet adapters are the only ones capable of true 40Gb line rate operation at 8KB I/O with Windows 2012 SMB-Direct. Chelsio demonstrated 40Gb operation of the Windows Server 2012 SMB Direct protocol using a Chelsio T5-based iWARP RDMA over Ethernet adapter at the Storage Developer Conference in Santa Clara, CA. The demonstration showed line rate throughput at 8KB I/O size, effectively the highest possible IOPS for SMB Direct over Ethernet-based fabrics.

"Windows Server 2012 provides breakthrough innovations in storage technology," said Jose Barreto, principal program manager, File Server Foundation, Microsoft. "When combined with high performance RDMA adapters such as the ones from Chelsio, Windows 2012 enables robust and high performance Flash based storage appliances."

"Chelsio's 40Gb iWARP RDMA solution offers a new level of performance and scalability for Windows cloud installations," said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio. "The offload capability of the adapters enables the deployment of less expensive and power efficient CPUs on the server side, resulting in a more economical and greener virtualized cloud infrastructure. With the combined support for offloaded Network Direct, iSCSI and FCoE, T5 adapters provide the most complete Windows solution, releasing the full value of a Windows platform."

SMB Direct over iWARP RDMA Demonstration
The demonstration at the Storage Developer Conference consisted of two systems connected via 40Gb Chelsio T580-LP-CR interfaces through a switch. Using the Microsoft sqlio2 utility, Chelsio was able to demonstrate the transfer of data at 40Gb/sec from the SMB client to SMB server with 8kB blocks and the SMB Direct protocol using iWARP RDMA. More information is available at http://www.chelsio.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/05/Microsoft-Word-T5-Brief-SNW-Spring-2013-docx.pdf.

RDMA over Ethernet (iWARP RDMA)
RDMA over Ethernet (iWARP) is an industry-standard low latency protocol developed by the IETF. Since it is built on top of TCP/IP, it is routable and scalable from just a few to thousands of co-located or geographically dispersed endpoints, and is adaptable to any data center topology or speed. It further can work independently of the DCB capabilities, thereby reducing deployment costs and decoupling the server and switch refresh cycles. More data at http://www.chelsio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/iWARP-LAMMPSand-WRF-40G.pdf.

About Chelsio Communications, Inc.
Chelsio is a leading technology company focused on solving high performance networking and storage challenges for virtualized enterprise data centers, cloud service installations, and cluster computing environments. Now shipping its fourth generation protocol acceleration technology, Chelsio is delivering hardware and software solutions including Unified Wire Ethernet network adapter cards, unified storage software, high performance storage gateways, unified management software, bypass cards, and other solutions focused on specialized applications. Visit the company at www.chelsio.com.

SOURCE Chelsio Communications, Inc.