eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Application-intelligent networking software and hardware specialist Solarflare announced the release of the Flareon SFN7002F dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) PCIe 3.0 SFP+ server I/O adapter, which features a virtualized host interface that includes 2048 virtual NIC (vNIC) interfaces.
The SFN7002F features driver support for a slew of operating system and hypervisor environments, including Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Open Stack Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware ESXi, and Hyper-V Server.
In addition, the SFN7002F’s virtualized architecture with 2048 MSI-X interrupt vectors enables central processing unit (CPU)-intensive networking applications, including Web, application, mail, database, compute and storage servers, to leverage today’s multicore CPUs.
“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,” Mike Smith, vice president and general manager of host solutions at Solarflare, said in a statement. “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.”
The company noted upgrades for packet capture and filtering, network monitoring and precision time synchronization (IEEE 1588 PTP) with hardware time stamping are also available.
The adapter is also positioned to maximize multicore CPU and virtual CPU efficiency for both bare metal and virtualized servers, while the MSI-X interrupt vector enables the communication between the intelligent Solarflare adapter and the CPU to be faster and contain more information.
Rounding out the package is AppFlex technology, which allows the multiple network services that accelerate, monitor and secure network data to be 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, the company said.
In April, CloudFlare, the Web performance and security company, selected Solarflare to strengthen its advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services and accelerate CloudFlare’s next-generation global network.
By deploying Solarflare’s SolarSecure Filter Engine along with the company’s 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) server adapters, CloudFlare builds an extra layer of protection into their network at the server level, increasing headroom and responsiveness in the face of DDoS attacks.
The SolarSecure-enabled Web server was able to withstand an attack rate of 120,000 connections/second before performance began to degrade. By contrast, the Web server without SolarSecure was able to withstand an attack rate of less than 15,000 connections per second.