SANTA CLARA, Calif. February 20, 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today unveiled its Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology, the first network interface specifically designed to accelerate multi-threaded application performance by optimizing I/O throughput within environments that utilize parallel threads. Sun’s silicon innovation represents a revolutionary multi-threaded approach to connecting processors to the network. Today’s application and network environments are increasingly threaded, a trend Sun saw years before anyone else when it built the industry’s first multi-threaded operating system (OS): Solaris. Today, Sun is the undisputed leader in multi-core, multi-thread technology, with the Solaris OS, and the UltraSPARC T1 processor. Sun can now extend its multi-threaded leadership from the operating system, to the processor, and onto the network. While Sun’s new Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology is optimized for chip multi-threading (CMT) environments, it improves network performance for all processors.
Also today, Sun is introducing the first product based on the Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology, the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card. It is ideal for virtualization because you can assign the right amount of network bandwidth to all virtualized applications. It also speeds other network intensive applications and services, such as: fast database access and backup, large data warehousing, web infrastructure, cluster computing, and video streaming. Sun plans to incorporate its unique Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology across all product lines, including in future processors, motherboards, blades and switches. The Niagara 2 processor – scheduled to be introduced in the second half of this year – will incorporate the networking technology directly on the processor. The card supports Linux now and will support Windows in the future.
“When we started developing multi-core processors we discovered a fundamental challenge: networking devices were designed to speak with one processor, not multiple cores or threads, which limited overall performance,” said John Fowler, executive vice president, Sun’s Systems group. “The Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology solves this problem: its the first network interface that speaks fluently with today’s advanced processors. No one knows more about multi-threading then Sun. And with the tight integration between the Solaris OS, our CMT processors, and our new 10Gb Ethernet technology, we can deliver an integrated, optimized network environment with unmatched throughput.”
More On The Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology
The Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology is designed to work in multi-threaded environments by employing multiple DMA channels to reduce the need for CPU resources for I/O processing. When paired with SPARC or X64 based multi-core servers, the Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology can deliver application performance improvements of up to four times Sun’s current network interfaces and has significantly higher throughput than the competition. The Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology is also designed to take advantage of the Solaris OS’ threaded design for maximum throughput, regardless of the processor. The new Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology leverages Sun’s tradition of design innovation for high performance and has resulted in 22 patents being awarded to Sun for this technology.
New Network Card
The Sun Multithreaded Networking Card – now available – can deliver up to 10 times the throughput at 1/3 the cost per gigabit, as compared to the equivalent number of 1Gb Ethernet cards. The Sun Multithreaded Networking Card features dual 10Gb Ethernet ports that can deliver a true line-rate of 10Gb when used with a CMT server, such as the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000.
Pricing for the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card starts at $498US per 10Gb Ethernet port. The card can be tried risk-free for 60 days through Sun’s Try and Buy program. To purchase the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card or to learn more about how Sun can deliver an entire, end-to-end multi-threaded computing environment, please visit: http://www.sun.com/products/networking/ethernet/10gigethernet/get_it.jsp