Scalable Networking News: Intel Opens Up and Says "QuickData Technology"

There's some pretty neat news coming out Intel's big Developer Forum event this week in Taipei.  Just a few months after releasing Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAT) as part of the Bensley (Xeon 5000 series) processor-based platform, they are now offering access to a core component -- the DMA engine -- to third party networking vendors.

Now with its newly minted name (Intel QuickData Technology), the DMA engine will be available to an array of network hardware and server vendors to built network acceleration solutions on top of.  As you'll likely recall, Intel I/OAT is supported by Windows Server 2003 through the Scalable Networking Pack released in May 2006. Specially, the NetDMA component of the pack enables the integrated support.

So, what's cool about this news?  Well, it means there will be an even larger set of options for customers who seek to implement these Scalable Networking technologies with Windows Server.  We already have 15 Scalable Networking partners that are shipping hardware support for the Scalable Networking Pack, and I'd expect more will be coming with today's announcement (or, at the very least, additional support features from our existing partners).

Lastly, the Scalable Networking Pack bits will be included with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. So, as you begin evaluating or deployment gigabit Ethernet (GigE), multi-gig or 10GigE, don't forget to great server performance improvements made possible by the Scalable Networking Pack for WS03 and Windows Server "Longhorn" (and, yes, even Windows Vista!).