Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350-T2

Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350-T2

The new Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350 family builds on Intel’s history of excellence in Ethernet products. Intel continues its market leadership with this new generation of PCIe* GbE network adapters. Built with the bridgeless Intel® Ethernet Controller I350, these adapters represent the next step in the Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) networking evolution for the enterprise and data center by introducing new levels of performance through industry-leading enhancements for both virtualized and iSCSI Unified Networking environments. This new family of adapters also includes new power management technologies such as Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) and DMA Coalescing (DMAC).

Flexible I/O Virtualization

The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350 family includes Intel® Virtualization Technology for connectivity (Intel® VT-c) to deliver I/O virtualization and Quality of Service (QoS) features designed directly into the controller on the adapter. I/O virtualization advances network connectivity models used in today’s servers to more efficient models  by providing Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP), multiple Rx/Tx queues, and oncontroller QoS functionality that can be used in both virtual and non-virtual server deployments.

By taking advantage of the PCI-SIG SR-IOV specification, Intel® Ethernet products enable Flexible Port Partitioning  (FPP). With FPP, virtual controllers can be used by the Linux* host directly and/ or assigned to virtual machines. With this port partitioning, administrators can create up to eight dedicated connections on a single Ethernet port for use in baremetal and virtualized server deployments. In a bare-metal Linux server, host processes can be assigned to dedicated network resources to provide traffic isolation and balanced bandwidth allocation. In a virtualized environment, a VM can be assigned to a virtual controller to reduce the CPU overhead seen when using a software-based network bridge by offloading network traffic management to the controller.