Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T2
Features
Benefits
Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T2
• Industry’s first integrated MAC+PHY reducing cost and power
Low-profile
• Enables higher bandwidth and throughput from standard and low-profile PCIe slots and servers
Load balancing on multiple CPUs
• Increases performance on multi-processor systems by efficiently balancing network loads across
CPU cores when used with Receive-Side Scaling from Microsoft* or Scalable I/O on Linux*
Remote boot iSCSI and FCoE
• Support for remote booting to an iSCSI or FCoE drive.
Support for most Network Operating Systems (NOS)
• Enables widespread deployment
RoHS compliant, lead-free technology
• Compliant with the European Union directive (July 2006) to reduce hazardous materials
I/O Features for Multi-core Processor Servers
MSI-X support
• Minimizes the overhead of interrupts
• Allows load balancing of interrupt handling between different cores/CPUs
Low latency
• Based on the sensitivity of the incoming data, the adapter can bypass the automatic moderation
of time intervals between the interrupts
Header Splits and Replication in Receive
• Helps the driver focus on the relevant part of the packet without the need to parse it
Multiple Queues
• Packet handling without waiting/buffer overflow provides efficient packet prioritization
Tx/Rx IP, SCTP, TCP, and UDP checksum offloading (IPv4,
IPv6) capabilities
• Lower processor usage
• Checksum and segmentation capability extended to new standard packet type
Tx TCP segmentation offload (IPv4, IPv6)
• Increased throughput and lower processor usage
• Compatible with large-send offload feature (in Microsoft Windows* Server operating systems)
IPsec Offload
• Offloads IPsec capability to adapter instead of software to significantly improve through-
put and CPU usage (for Windows* 7, Windows* 2008 Server R2, Windows* 2008 Server, and
Windows Vista*)
Compatible with x8 and x16 standard and low-profile
PCI Express* slots
• Enables each PCI Express* slot port to operate without interfering or competing with other ports
Receive/Transmit Side Scaling for Windows* and
Scalable I/O for Linux* (IPv4, IPv6, TCP/ UDP)
• Enables direction of the interrupts to the processor cores in order to improve the CPU usage rate
RJ45 connections over CAT-6a cabling
• Ensures compatibility with cable lengths up to 100 meters
Virtualization Features
Virtual Machine Device queues (VMDq)
• Offloads data-sorting from the Hypervisor to silicon, improving data throughput and CPU usage
• QoS feature for Tx data by providing round-robin servicing and preventing head-of-line blocking
• Sorting based on MAC addresses and VLAN tags
Next-Generation VMDq (64 queues per port)
• Enhanced QoS feature by providing weighted round-robin servicing for the Tx data
• Provides loopback functionality, data transfer between the virtual machines within the same
physical server don’t go out to the wire and back in, improving throughput and CPU usage
• Supports replication of multicast and broadcast data
PCI-SIG SR-IOV Implementation (64 virtual functions per
port)
• Implementation of I/O Virtualization. The physical configuration of each port is divided into
multiple virtual ports. Each virtual port is assigned to an individual virtual machine directly by by-
passing the virtual switch in the Hypervisor, resulting in near-native performance
• I integrated with Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d) to provide data pro-
tection between virtual machines by assigning separate physical addresses in the memory to
each virtual machine
IPv6 Offloading
• Checksum and segmentation capability extended to the new standard packet type
Advanced Packet Filtering
• 24 exact-matched addresses (unicast or multicast)
• 4096-bit hash filter for unicast and multicast frames
• Lower processor usage
• Promiscuous (unicast and multicast) transfer mode support
• Optional filtering of invalid frames
VLAN support with VLAN tag insertion, stripping and
packet filtering for up to 4096 VLAN tags
• Ability to create multiple VLAN segments
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