Scalable Networking News: Alacritech and NetXen Partner to Drive 10 GigE on TCP Chimney Offload

Industry momentum around our Scalable Networking initiative, with its innovative technologies like TCP Chimney Offload and Receive-side Scaling, continues as our partners deliver new solutions for high-speed networking within Windows environments. 

This morning, two of our partners -- NetXen and Alacritech -- announced a joint effort to develop 10 GigE solutions built on top of our TCP Chimney Offload architecture in Windows Server 2003 (and will very likely extend that solution for Windows Server "Longhorn" when it is released). Here's a link to the announcement:

Alacritech and NetXen Join Forces to Deliver Solutions for Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload Technology

This announcement is quite timely as we inch closer to the release of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.  Among the numerous updates incorporated into this SP, the Scalable Networking Pack bits will be among them.  Unlike the original Scalable Networking Pack released back in May 2006 at WinHEC, these features will be enabled by default when SP2 is installed.  This will result in an even smoother deployment and near instant utilization of the the functionality within those new servers or high-speed networking "add-on" adapter you've recently purchased. 

So, why get excited by all this high-speed, 10 GigE mumbo-jumbo?  Well, data centers are beginning to make the transition to 10 Gigabit infrastructure, and we've (i.e. Microsoft) have been anticipating this for some time.  For example, Fujitsu just introduced a new 10 GigE switch focused on high-performance computing and data center clustering.  Other networking equipment makers are helping drive the adoption of 10 GigE in the data center, and we've laid the foundation within Windows Server (and Windows client with the release of Windows Vista) to help companies embrace high(er) speed networking, drive for fabric convergence (e.g. everything (e.g. data, voice, video, back-up, storage, interconnectivity, et al) over Ethernet), all without sacrificing performance. 

It's also worth noting that our Scalable Networking initiative is not limited to just the "Chimney", but encompasses a number of efforts, spanning targeted task offload solutions, like IPsec task offload, to full protocol stateful offload, like TCP Chimney Offload.  Keep watching this space for more insights on what's to come and how they can help you truly squeeze more "juice out of the orange" of your Windows Server gear.  (NOTE: I tried so hard to get that "squeeze more juice" sound bite quoted during the launch last May, but without much success.  Maybe's it's the sound bite).