Chelsio Delivers First PCI-Express Quad-Port Gigabit Ethernet Adapter With TCP Offload and iSCSI for Linux

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Chelsio Communications, Inc., the established leader in 10-Gigabit Ethernet and multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters with protocol acceleration technology, today announced its first protocol offload engine utilizing the PCI-Express host bus interface.

The T204-ET, a quad-port Gigabit Ethernet Protocol Engine, is designed for network servers and iSCSI target mode applications that have not yet migrated to the 10Gbps infrastructure. The T204-ET is the latest addition to Chelsio's extensive portfolio of protocol offload engines that enable superior throughput and low latency for storage and server applications.

In addition to the new T204-ET, Chelsio's product family also includes the T204-BT, a quad-port Gigabit Ethernet PCI-X bus adapter, the T210 10Gb Ethernet adapter, and the Terminator ASIC optimized for server and storage OEM applications. Each of the adapter and controller products feature full TCP/IP Offload (TOE) and iSCSI acceleration in hardware to deliver unprecedented network and storage performance.

The products are supported with full turn-key Linux software drivers from Chelsio that are compatible across the entire product family, greatly reducing design-in costs for OEMs and total cost of ownership for enterprise IT managers.

"Chelsio is the only company today supplying 10GbE and multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters with TCP Offload and iSCSI acceleration on a single hardware architecture and single software solution," said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio Communications. "We are now further expanding our product portfolio and leadership position with support for PCI-Express platforms."

Several data-intensive applications on the market such as video streaming, image processing and backup that require high-throughput will benefit from Chelsio's iSCSI performance. Specific applications include SAN edge devices including storage arrays, storage-aware devices in the SAN cloud such as virtualization engines, and IP-based data centers based on the emerging blade server product category.

"Nimbus is pleased with the performance aspects of Chelsio's TOE and iSCSI software solution," said Thomas Z. Isakovich, President and CEO, Nimbus Data Systems. "By delivering an integrated, high-performance iSCSI target stack across a line of multi-port GbE and 10GbE adapters and controllers, Chelsio provides a range of options for developing industry-leading iSCSI SAN solutions." Industry-leading iSCSI Target-Mode Performance

To achieve the IOPS performance, the Chelsio T204 was deployed in a link- aggregated configuration in an iSCSI target mode server powered by dual 2.4 GHz Opteron processors running Linux, the Chelsio iSCSI target stack, and a RAM disk. The target mode server was connected to 16 Windows 2003 servers running the Microsoft iSCSI initiator and the industry-standard Iometer tool was used for measuring 512-byte initiator reads and writes. Measurements on T204 showed a unidirectional bandwidth of up to 3.9 Gbps with less than 20% CPU utilization, using standard 1500-byte Ethernet frames. Pricing and Availability

The T204-ET lists for $1,495 and will be in full production in January 2006. Chelsio will be exhibiting the T204-ET and its portfolio of protocol acceleration products this week at Supercomputing 2005 in Seattle, in booth #2130. About Chelsio Communications

Chelsio Communications is leading the convergence of networking, storage and clustering interconnects with its robust, high-performance and proven protocol acceleration technology. Featuring a highly scalable and programmable architecture, Chelsio is shipping 10-Gigabit Ethernet and multi- port Gigabit Ethernet adapter cards with protocol offload, delivering the low latency and superior throughput required for high-performance computing applications. For more information, visit the company online at http://www.chelsio.com.