Solarflare Debuts New 10GbE Server Adapter

IRVINE, Calif., May 27 — Solarflare, the leader in application-intelligent networking software and hardware, today announced the general availability of the Solarflare Flareon SFN7002F dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) PCIe 3.0 SFP+ server I/O adapter. The Flareon SFN7002F features a unique, highly virtualized host interface that includes 2048 virtual NIC (vNIC) interfaces. Solarflare vNICs use message signal interrupt (MSI-X) vectors to enable unmatched multi-core and virtual machine (VM) scalability and is the premier network platform for enabling next-generation cloud computing and software defined networking. For the first time, IT managers and network architects will have access to the ability to unleash the power of multi-core CPUs.

Today, state of the art for scale out computing is with bare metal and is approaching 24 cores per dual-processor server, 48 with Hyper-Threading technology enabled. With the latest virtual operating systems over 4000 virtual CPUs per server are available. The SFN7002F’s unique virtualized architecture with 2048 MSI-X interrupt vectors enables CPU-intensive networking applications – including web, application, mail, database, compute and storage servers – to leverage today’s multi-core CPUs. The MSI-X interrupt vector enables the communication between the intelligent Solarflare adapter and the CPU to be faster and contain more information. With 2048 MSI-X interrupt vectors, the SFN7002F possesses an ability to scale that is an order of magnitude greater than its nearest competitor. The adapter is uniquely positioned to maximize multi-core CPU and virtual CPU efficiency for both bare metal and virtualized servers.

The Flareon SFN7002F combines excellent performance and scalability with exceptional 10GbE value for data center, cloud, Big Data, grid, virtualization, and general networking environments. And, at less than 6 watts, the SFN7002F consumes one-third less power than competitive solutions – significantly reducing operating costs for a typical data center.

“The SFN7002F is optimized for the data center. From its power efficiency to its highly virtualized architecture, customers are assured of excellent performance and scalability in an affordable server adapter,” said Mike Smith, vice president and general manager of host solutions at Solarflare. “Plus, because the SFN7002F supports our advanced AppFlex technology, customers can now implement and control a variety of network services – including security measures – at the server level.”

With AppFlex technology, the multiple network services that accelerate, monitor, and secure network data are selectively delivered and controlled at the server adapter. With an OpenOnload upgrade, the SFN7002F can bypass kernel and networking overheads to deliver unmatched message rates with low latency and low jitter. Upgrades for packet capture and filtering, network monitoring, and precision time synchronization (IEEE 1588 PTP) with hardware time stamping are also available.

The SFN7002F features driver support for popular operating system and hypervisor environments, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Open Stack Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware ESXi, and Microsoft Windows and Hyper-V Server.