10 Gigabit Ethernet Dual Port LAN on Motherboard option for Dell™ PowerEdge™ Blade Servers provides ultimate flexibility and scalability in virtual and unified storage environments

The Intel® Ethernet 10G X520 KR LAN on Motherboard option within the Select Network Adapter Family for Dell PowerEdge Blade Servers is one of the most flexible and scalable Ethernet adapters for today’s demanding data center environments. Data center networks are being pushed to their limits. The escalating deployments of servers with multi-core processors and demanding applications such as High Performance Computing (HPC), database clusters, and video-on-demand are driving the need for 10 Gigabit connections. Customers require flexible and scalable I/O solutions to meet the rigorous requirements of running mission-critical applications in virtualized and unified storage environments.

Simplifying Management and Provisioning with Blades

Intel® architecture-based blade servers provide the performance, dependability, and manageability essential for businesses running database, data center, and other business- critical applications in a high-density environment. In addition to providing excellent performance and energy efficiency, Dell Blade Servers simplify data center environments and reduce total cost of ownership by reducing the need for external cabling and switch infrastructure. The Intel Ethernet 10G X520 LAN on Motherboard option provides an advanced, cost-effective network-connectivity solution for blade server solutions.

Powered by Intel’s third-generation 10 GbE network controller (the Intel® Ethernet 82599 Controller) the Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR addresses the demanding needs of the next-generation data center by providing unmatched features for virtualization, flexibility for LAN and SAN networking, and proven, reliable performance.

Flexible I/O Virtualization

Virtualization changes the way server resources are deployed and managed by running multiple applications and operating systems independently on a single server.

The Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR includes Intel® Virtualization Technology for Connectivity (Intel® VT-c) to deliver I/O virtualization and Quality of Service (QoS) features designed directly into the Intel Ethernet 82599 Controller on the adapter. Intel® 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 on-controller QoS functionality that can be used in both virtual and non-virtual server deployments.

Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP)

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. FPP allows you to use the functionality of SR-IOV to assign up to 63 processes per port to virtual functions in Linux. This enables an administrator to partition their 10GbE bandwidth across multiple processes ensuring a quality of service (QoS) giving each assigned process equal bandwidth. Network administrators may also rate limit each of these services to control how much of the 10GbE pipe is available to each process.

Unified Networking and Storage

Unified Networking and storage solutions on the new Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR let you combine the traffic of multiple data center networks like LAN and SAN onto a single efficient network fabric. You now have the choice of NFS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) to carry both network and storage traffic at speeds of up to 10 GB. The Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR combines support for these traffic types in one adapter at no additional cost or with no additional licensing fees.

FCoE encapsulates Fiber Channel frames over standard Ethernet networks, enabling Fiber Channel to take advantage of 10 GbE networks while preserving its native protocol. The Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR offers FCoE hardware acceleration to provide performance comparable to FC HBAs. The new server adapters support Data Center Bridging which allows customers to configure traffic classes and priorities to deliver a lossless Ethernet fabric. An Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR reduces TCO by eliminating redundant fabrics and saves the cost of expensive FC HBAs and FC switch ports.

Intel’s Unified Networking solutions are enabled through a combination of standard Intel Ethernet products along with trusted network protocols integrated in the operating systems. Thus, Unified Networking is available on every server either through LAN on Motherboard (LOM), Network Daughter Card, implementation or via an add-in Network Interface Card (NIC).

Intel has delivered high quality Ethernet products for over 30 years and our Unified Networking and storage solutions are built on the same founding principles that made us successful in Ethernet.

• Open Architecture integrates networking with the server allowing IT managers to reduce complexity and overhead while enabling a flexible and scalable data center network.
• Intelligent offloads lower cost and power while delivering the application performance that customers expect.
• Proven Ethernet Unified Networking is built on trusted Intel® Ethernet Technology enabling customers to deploy FCoE or iSCSI while maintaining the quality of their traditional Ethernet networks.

iSCSI Simplifies SAN Connectivity

The Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR provides complete support for proven native OS and VMM, iSCSI initiators as well as iSCSI boot. iSCSI uses Ethernet to carry storage traffic, extending the familiarity and simplicity of Ethernet to storage networking, without the need for SAN-specific adapters or switches. Intel Ethernet X520 is the easiest, most reliable, and most cost-effective way of connecting servers to iSCSI SANs.

Historically, CRC32C computation has degraded system performance, but now with the CRC instruction set included in the latest Intel® Xeon® processors, CRC validation is possible with minimal impact to network throughput while delivering superior data integrity.

The new Intel Ethernet 10G X520 KR LAN on Motherboard option within the Select Network Adapter Family for Dell PowerEdge Blade Servers does it all: 10 Gigabit LAN, FCoE, and iSCSI; truly delivering on the promise of unified networking.

Open FCoE Consolidates LANs and Legacy SANs

Intel’s Open FCoE solution enables Intel Ethernet 10 Gigabit Server products (LOM or NICs) to support Fibre Channel payload encapsulated in Ethernet frames. There is no upgrade charge for Open FCoE. Just as with iSCSI, now customers can easily connect to an FCoE network with Intel 10GbE solutions.

The Open-FCoE architecture uses a combination of FCoE initiators in Microsoft Windows* and Linux* operating systems and in the VMware ESX* hypervisor to deliver high-performance FCoE solutions over standard 10GbE Ethernet adapters.

This approach allows IT managers to simplify the data center and standardize on a single adapter for LAN and SAN connectivity. The Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR is designed to fully offload the FCoE data path to deliver full-featured converged network adapter (CNA) functionality without compromising on power efficiency and interoperability.

Data Center Bridging (DCB) Delivers Lossless Ethernet

Conventional Ethernet does not guarantee successful data delivery, which is not acceptable for SAN traffic. Ethernet enhancements such as Data Center Bridging (DCB) overcome that limitation with technologies that guarantee lossless delivery, congestion notification, priority-based flow control, and priority groups.

Intel is driving Data Center Bridging (DCB), a new collection of standards-based end-to-end networking technologies that make Ethernet the unified fabric for multiple types of traffic in the data center.

The combination of 10GbE and Unified Networking helps organizations overcome connectivity challenges and simplify the data center infrastructure. 10GbE provides a simple, well-understood fabric for virtualized data centers, one that helps reduce cost and complexity as the number of virtual machines continues to grow.

Reliable Performance

The Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR includes a number of advanced features that allow it to provide industry-leading performance and reliability.

Security Optimizations
The adapters support IPsec offload for Microsoft’s Network Access Protection (NAP), Active Directory,* and future security capabilities in Windows* 7. An Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR allows customers to run a secure network environment without sacrificing performance.

PCIe v2.0 (5 GT/s)
PCIe v2.0 (5 GT/s) support enables customers to take full advantage of 10 GbE by providing a maximum of 20 Gbps bi-directional throughput per port on a single dual port card.

Designed for Multi-core Processors
Support for technologies such as multiple MSI-X vectors and Low Latency Interrupts allow the Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR to provide high-performance, 10 Gigabit connectivity in multi-core server blades. These technologies distribute network processing across multiple CPU cores, improving overall performance.

For today’s demanding virtualized data center environments, the new Intel Ethernet Network Daughter Card 10G X520 KR delivers ultimate flexibility and scalability.

Software Tools and Management

Intel Ethernet server and converged network adapters support Dell’s Lifecycle Controller. The Lifecycle Controller is coupled with the Dell DRAC service processor to provide embedded system management. The Lifecycle Controller enables both local and remote access to manage initial setup and configuration of the BIOS settings on the platform, setup and configuration of Intel Ethernet adapters, update of all the platform firmware, and the deployment of the operating systems.

Intel® Advanced Network Services (Intel® ANS) include new teaming technologies and techniques such as Virtual Machine Load-Balancing (VMLB) for Hyper-V environments. Intel ANS also provides a variety of teaming configurations for up to eight ports, and support for teaming mixed vendors’ server adapters. Intel ANS includes support for 802.1Q VLANs, making Intel ANS one of the most capable and comprehensive tools for supporting server adapter teaming.

Additionally, Intel® PROSet for Windows* Device Manager (DMIX) and PROsetCL extends driver functionality to provide additional reliability and Quality of Service features and configuration.

To see the full line of Intel Network Adapters, see our product selector guide,
visit www.intel.com/go/ethernet, or contact your Dell sales representative.

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