Sun partners for high-speed Ethernet

Sun Microsystems will integrate drivers for S2io Technologies' Xframe 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter into the Solaris operating system for Sparc, Advanced Micro Devices Opteron, and Intel Xeon servers.

In addition, S2io will partner with Sun to develop a TCP/IP offload engine with remote direct memory access functionality to enhance performance and scalability in intense computer and server environments.

Both announcements were aimed at high-performance server environments and mission-critical applications, president and CEO of startup S2io, Dave Zabrowski, said.

"This is another clear example of the growing demand for 10GbE and its unique ability to offer a clear path for server optimisation while protecting existing data centre investment," he said.

Sun is developing new high-performance TCP/IP architecture for Solaris, called FireEngine.

"Working with S2io will help us to jointly address customer demand for higher levels of server performance due to the exponential growth of data," vice-president for Sun's operating platforms group, Glenn Weinberg, said.

Adding the Xframe 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter technology to Solaris helped to address the large performance bottleneck that interfaces between servers could cause, an analyst at The Linley Group, Jag Bolaria, said.

"The demand for 10GbE is still relatively small, but S2io is getting in early with customers who will probably be looking at the technology before long," he said

S2io's Xframe 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter would also give Sun an offering that many competitors did not yet have, Bolaria said.

"It's a good deal for S2io to align themselves with Sun, and it's a good deal for Sun because they will have a jump on this technology," he said.