E1G44HTBLK - Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I340

Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet server adapter designed for multi-core processors and support for Virtualization & Unified Storage Environments

• High-performing, 10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet connection
  
• Low cost and low power halogen-free adapter
  
• Reliable and proven Gigabit Ethernet technology from Intel Corporation
  
• Scalable PCI Express* Gen 2.0 interface provides dedicated I/O bandwidth for I/O-intensive networking applications
  
• Support for virtualized & iSCSI Unified Networking environments

Based on the new Intel® 82580 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, the Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter is Intel’s fourth generation of PCIe GbE adapter. This adapter showcases the industry’s first fully integrated quad-port PCIe Gen2 GbE controller, providing a smaller footprint and lower power dissipation. In addition, the Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter offers advanced features, including support for multi-core processors and server virtualization, as well as a scalable PCI Express Gen 2.0 interface. Intel’s first eco-friendly halogen-free board combines low-power and cost for the best price/performance ratio in a quad-port solution available today.

Halogen-Free

Working to create a more environmentally sustainable future, Intel is pleased to introduce its first halogen-free Ethernet Server Adapter. The transition to halogen-free products is not government mandated, but driven by Intel’s goal to eliminate the use of environmentally sensitive materials. The move to halogen-free products marks another step in our continual march toward minimizing the environmental footprint of Intel’s products, processes, and technologies.

Designed for Multi-Core Processors

This quad-port adapter provides high-performing, multi-port Gigabit connectivity in a multi-core platform as well as in a virtualized environment. In a multi-core platform, the adapter supports technologies such as Intel® QuickData Technology, MSIX, and Low Latency Interrupts that help accelerate data across the platform, improving application response times.

The I/O technologies on a multi-core platform make use of the multiple queues and multiple interrupt vectors available on the network controller. These queues and interrupt vectors help in load balancing the data and interrupts amongst themselves in order to lower the load on the processors and improve overall system performance. For example, depending upon the latency sensitivity of the data, the low latency interrupts feature can bypass the time interval for specific TCP ports or for flagged packets to give certain types of data streams the least amount of latency to the application.

Support for iSCSI

The server adapter provides support for proven OS and VMM iSCSI initiators as well as iSCSI boot. Historically, CRC32C computation has degraded system performance, but not with the CRC instruction set included in the latest Intel® Xeon® processors. CRC validation is possible with minimal impact to the network throughput while delivering superior data integrity .

Support for Virtualization

The Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter showcases a suite of hardware assists that improves overall system performance by lowering the I/O overhead in a virtualized environment. This optimizes CPU usage, reduces system latency, and improves I/O throughput. These features include: Product Brief Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter Network Connectivity Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet server adapter designed for multi-core processors and support for Virtualization & Unified Storage Environments • Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) • Intel® I/O Acceleration Technology (Intel® I/OAT) Use of multi-port adapters in a virtualized environment is very important because of the need to provide redundancy and data connectivity for the applications/workloads in the virtual machines. Due to the need for redundancy and data connectivity, it is recommended that a virtualized physical server needs at least six GbE ports to satisfy the I/O requirement demands.

Virtual Machine Device queues (VMDq)

VMDq reduces I/O overhead on the hypervisor in a virtualized server by performing data sorting and coalescing in the network silicon. VMDq technology makes use of multiple queues in the network controller. As data packets enter the network adapter, they are sorted, and packets traveling to the same destination (or virtual machine) get grouped together in a single queue. The packets are then sent to the hypervisor, which directs them to their respective virtual machines. Relieving the hypervisor of packet filtering and sorting improves overall CPU usage and throughput levels.

Intel® I/O Acceleration Technology

Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (Intel I/OAT) is a suite of features that improves data acceleration across the platform, from networking devices to the chipset and processors, which helps to improve system performance and application response times. The different features include Intel QuickData Technology, Direct Cache Access (DCA), MSI-X, Low-Latency Interrupts, Receive Side Scaling (RSS), and others. Intel QuickData Technology, a DMA engine, moves data using the chipset instead of the CPU. DCA enables the adapter to pre-fetch data from the memory cache, thereby avoiding cache misses and improving application response times. MSI-X helps in load-balancing I/O interrupts across multiple processor cores, and Low Latency Interrupts can provide certain data streams a non-modulated path directly to the application. RSS directs the interrupts to a specific processor core based on the application’s address. Reliable Performance The server adapter includes a number of advanced features that enable it to provide industry-leading quad-port 1GbE performance and reliability. PCIe* v2.0 (5 GT/s) PCIe v2.0 (5 GT/s) support enables customers to take full advantage of the 1 GbE by providing a maximum of 2.0 Gbps bi-directional throughput per port on a single quad-port card. For today’s demanding virtualized data center environments, the new Intel® Ethernet I340 Server Adapter delivers ultimate flexibility and scalability.

 

E1G44HTBLK - Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I340

Feature	Benefit
Intel® 82580 Gigabit Ethernet Controller with PCI Express* V2.0 (5 GT/s) Support	• Industry-leading smallest non-bridged PCIe Gen2 quad-port 1GbE controller • Enables customers to take full advantage of 1GbE by providing maximum bi-directional throughput per port on a single quad-port adapter
Halogen Free (Applies only to halogenated flame retardants. Halogens are below 900 ppm bromine and 900 ppm chlorine.)	• Leadership in an environmentally friendly ecosystem
Low-profile	• Enables higher bandwidth and throughput from standard and low-profile PCIe slots and servers
iSCSI remote boot support	• Provides centralized storage area network (SAN) management at a lower cost than competing iSCSI solutions
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*
Compatible with x4, x8, and x16 standard and low-profile PCI Express* slots	• Enables quad-port operation in almost any PCI Express server slot, except x1 slots
Multi-port design	• Allows each port to operate without interfering with the others
Support for most network operating systems (NOS)	• Enables widespread deployment
RoHS-compliant	• Compliant with the European Union directive 2002/95/EC to reduce the use of hazardous materials
Intel® PROSet Utility for Windows* Device Manager	• Provides point-and-click management of individual adapters, advanced adapter features, connection teaming, and virtual local area network (VLAN) configuration
I/O Features for Multi-core Processor Servers
Intel® QuickData Technology	• DMA Engine: enhances data acceleration across the platform (network, chipset, processor), lowering CPU usage • Direct Cache Access (DCA): enables the adapter to pre-fetch the data from memory, avoiding cache misses and improving application response time
MSI-X support	• Minimizes the overhead of interrupts • Allows load-balancing of interrupt handling between multiple cores/CPUs
Low Latency Interrupts	• 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: 8 queues per port	• Network packet handling without waiting or buffer overflow providing 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)
Receive and Transmit Side Scaling for Windows environment and Scalable I/O for Linux* environments (IPv4, IPv6, TCP/UDP)	• This technology enables the direction of the interrupts to the processor cores in order to improve the CPU usage rate
Virtualization Features
Advanced Packet Filtering	• 24 exact-matched packets (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
Manageability Features
Advanced filtering capabilities	• Supports extended L2, L3, and L4 filtering for traffic routing to BMC • Supports MAC address, VLAN, ARP, IPv4, IPv6, RMCP UDP ports, and UDP/TCP ports filtering • Supports flexible header filtering • Enables the BMC to share the MAC address with the host OS
Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) Support	• Enables system boot up via the LAN (32-bit and 64-bit)) • Flash interface for PXE image
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Remote Network Monitoring (RMON) Statistic Counters	• Easy system monitoring with industry-standard consoles
Wake-on-LAN support	• Packet recognition and wake-up for LAN on motherboard applications without software configuration
iSCSI Boot	• Enables system boot up via iSCSI • Provides additional network management capability
Watchdog Timer	• Gives an indication to the manageability firmware or external devices that the chip or the driver is not functioning
IEEE 1588 precision time control protocol	• Time synch capability—synchronizes internal clocks according to a network master clock • HW timestamping of IEEE 1588 precision time protocol packets for increased accuracy