EtherFabric Features and Benefits
EtherFabric offers the following leadership features and benefits:
High CPU Efficiency
–- Because EtherFabric is designed with a different approach,
placing the TCP/IP implementation with each application via
a linked library, over 2x more CPU processing power is available
to applications, thereby increasing performance for all applications.
More Effective than TCP Off-Load Engines (TOE)
– EtherFabric puts the TCP/IP stack in the user-space
with each application, so the EtherFabric software runs on the
host CPU Rather than using complex off-load technology, EtherFabric
is an ‘onload’ architecture. This means that it
will scale in direct proportion to future CPU performance gains
according to Moore’s Law. An expensive, non-standard,
non-scalable TOE is not part of EtherFabric.
Low Latency –-
EtherFabric provides sub-10 usec (micro-second) latencies between
application instances on different servers, improving application-to-application
inter-server communication by 3-5x over conventional Ethernet.
Enhanced Bandwidth - EtherFabric also increases bandwidth by offering a unique transport-layer channel bonding capability to enable multiple low-cost Ethernet ports to support a single application flow.
Binary Software Compatibility
–- EtherFabric is fully backward compatible with existing
installed software infrastructure. It introduces no new
cables or switches, minimizing capital expenditures. It
requires no new application, middleware, or protocol software,
minimizing disruption to the infrastructure. And EtherFabric
is binary compatible with all existing application, management,
and control plane software, eliminating costs associated with
re-architecting data center operations and re-training staff.
Ethernet Wire Compatible - EtherFabric is fully backward compatible with existing installed hardware infrastructure. It introduces no new cables or switches, minimizing capital expenditures
Single-Sided Acceleration
–- Because EtherFabric uses unchanged TCP/IP over Ethernet,
it allows usage on just one side of connection.
This then uniquely allows the web server tier in a data center,
which is connected to non-servers - load balancers and firewalls,
to gain the CPU efficiency, latency, and bandwidth benefits
of EtherFabric. Other technologies cannot offer
acceleration to this critical part of the data center.
Upgrades the Entire Data Center
–- EtherFabric upgrades every old, inefficient
conventional Ethernet connection –- server-to-server,
server-to-storage, and server-to-network – with a next-generation
low-latency, high-efficiency interconnect, providing dramatic
benefits to every area of the data center.
Reduced Capital and Operational Expense - Along with full backward compatibility with existing standards, which dramatically decreases deployment costs, EtherFabric reduces the number of servers required by up to 50 percent. This reduction is a direct result of EtherFabric requiring less computing resources from the host server CPU to transfer network data, while also enabling the communication between servers to occur both more quickly and at higher speeds.
