Securing the Network's Leading Edge
Said Alex Rodriguez, Expedient VP
for Systems Engineering and Product
Development, “Processor capacity is an
important resource in the cloud. Intel
AES-NI allows us to provide more of
that resource to our customers while
maintaining our encryption standards.”
Simple, Robust Networking
with 10GBASE-T
With the increased data sizes being used
in the cloud, Expedient is fast to adopt
10GbE, and its connectivity of choice is
10GBASE-T, which combines the cost-
effectiveness and broad deployment of
copper with the robust throughput of
10GbE. As such, 10GBASE-T represents a
sweet spot between ber, which allows
for long connectivity distances in the data
center but is more expensive to deploy,
and SFP+ Direct Attach/Twinax, which has
a lower cost but is limited to just seven-
meter connections. 10GBASE-T supports
100-meter connections over Cat-6A
twisted-pair cabling with standard RJ-45
connectors, making it suitable for links
throughout the data center, at relatively
low cost.
10GBASE-T’s backward compatibility
with previous generations of Ethernet
limits the scope of the upgrade necessary
for its implementation. Alex Rodriguez
states, “Expedient believes that 10GbE
is the most efficient technology for its
cloud-based platforms, and 10GBASE-T
based on Intel Ethernet Converged
Network Adapters is the backbone of
our next-generation clouds.” Accordingly,
Mr. Rodriguez credits Intel Ethernet
“10GBASE-T based on Intel
Ethernet Converged Network
Adapters is the backbone of our
next-generation clouds.”
- Alex Rodriguez, VP, Systems Engineering
and Product Development, Expedient
10GBASE-T Converged Network Adapters
with the following benefits to Expedient:
• Network simplification
• Faster throughput
• Easier configuration and management
• Lower equipment total cost of
ownership (TCO)
Intel engineering around 10GBASE-T
continues to drive down costs and
power consumption. The Intel® Ethernet
Controller X540 is the industry’s rst fully
integrated 10GBASE-T converged network
solution. It is designed for low-cost, low-
power LAN on Motherboard (LOM) designs
for Intel® Xeon® processor E5 product
family servers. This controller also powers
the Intel® Ethernet Converged Network
Adapter X540 and exible LOM cards for
major server manufacturers.
Next-Generation Networking
with 10GBASE-T Intel Ethernet
Converged Network Adapters
Expedient uses the latest Intel Ethernet
Converged Network Adapters to help
its customers simplify their data center
environments by moving to 10GbE. For
example, consider the case of a virtualized
server with 10 network ports based on
Gigabit Ethernet, compared to the same
server using just two 10GbE ports. While
doubling overall network bandwidth from
10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) to 20 Gbps,
Expedient also saw the following benefits:
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• 23-percent reduction in cables and
number of switch ports
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• 14-percent reduction in total
infrastructure costs
• 150-percent improved bandwidth
per server
To deliver excellent performance for
cloud deployments, these adapters
also incorporate Intel® Virtualization
Technology for Connectivity (Intel® VT-c),
which helps ensure very high levels
of throughput by ofoading network-
trafc management functions from the
processor to the network hardware.
Intel VT-c capabilities built into Intel
Ethernet Converged Network Adapters
include two different I/O virtualization
modalities for high compatibility with
leading hypervisors:
• Virtual Machine Device Queues
(VMDq) supports Microsoft Hyper-V*
and VMware vSphere* environments.
VMDq improves throughput by offloading
packet sorting from the hypervisor
virtual switch to the Intel® Ethernet
controller.
• Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
supports Citrix XenServer*, KVM, and
Red Hat Enterprise Linux* environments.
Support for this PCI-SIG* specification
increases throughput by enabling direct
I/O connectivity to virtual machines,
bypassing software-based traffic
mechanisms.
In addition to these technologies, Intel
Ethernet customers also benet from
Intel’s three decades of leadership as
a provider of Ethernet solutions. That
experience supports Intel Ethernet
Converged Network Adapters in tangible
ways, such as having mature drivers
that deliver the performance and stability
customers need. Because these adapters
are engineered along with the rest of
the server stack, they also deliver highly
optimized performance that complements
the latest features of Intel® Xeon®
processors and other platform components.
Blazing Fast Encryption with
Intel® Advanced Encryption
Standard New Instructions
Robust data encryption is a prerequisite
for many of Expedient’s customers to
consider putting their critical data into the
cloud, particularly for industries that must
comply with regulations such as the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley, and Payment
Card Industry (PCI) standards. Expedient
delivers excellent support for those
requirements, overcoming the traditional
Securing the Network’s Leading Edge
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