With multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters, IT managers can segment networks to increase uptime, reliability and performance. Adding Gigabit Ethernet server ports increases flexibility connecting servers to the network. The result is higher overall network availability and throughput.
Intel® PRO Gigabit Server Adapters
offer the highest degree of flexibility in adding server ports. Single-port and dual-port Gigabit Ethernet cards are available for both copper and fiber applications. Quad-port cards are available for copper applications now and will soon be available for fiber. For high port density, the dual- and quad-port adapters occupy a single PCI-X server slot, conserving the remaining server slots for other applications (e.g., RAID). Also, Intel® PRO Gigabit Server Adapters are compatible with any existing network connections on your new servers or on your installed server base. Intel® Advanced Network Services (ANS) allow existing ports of any speed or brand to be teamed with Intel PRO Gigabit connections. In addition, the copper-based adapters can run at 10, 100 or 1000 Mbps and work with your switch infrastructure-no switch upgrades.
Intel PRO Gigabit Server Adapters enhance server efficiency. Intel offload technologies, Large Send Off (LSO) and TCP Checksum Offload, unburden the server by moving CPU intensive network tasks off the server and onto the adapter card.
Intel® Advanced Network Services (ANS) maximizes network productivity. With Intel ANS software, you can team multiple Intel® PRO Server Adapters with other network connections to set up redundant links for increased server reliability and scale network traffic flow for increased bandwidth. This is done through three key Intel PRO Server Adapter teaming features:
Fault Tolerance automatically detects link or adapter failure and switches data flow to a redundant link for increased uptime.
Link Aggregation combines multiple adapters into a single channel for greater bandwidth and data flow, increasing network performance and reliability. Fault Tolerance is built into this feature.
Load Balancing distributes network data flow across the aggregated network adapters for maximum network throughput. This feature also incorporates Link Aggregation and Fault Tolerance.
Intel Advance Networking Services is part of the software that ships with Intel PRO Server Adapters. It provides compatibility with all brands of network adapters for Link Aggregation, Load Balancing and setting up Fault Tolerant teams. So, you can upgrade your existing Fast Ethernet connections by adding an Intel PRO Gigabit Server Adapter and still use any existing Fast Ethernet connections for additional throughput or backup fault tolerance.
