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Comprehensive networking tools for the most demanding mission-critical and enterprise needs
HP Gigabit Ethernet LAN adapters–Gigabit performance at affordable costs
The demand for higher-speed network connections is growing at a tremendous rate in order
to keep pace with the speed requirements of applications such as SAP R/3,
database backups, medical, CAD/CAM, 3D modeling, animation, video, and more.
Internet data centers process terabytes of data daily. Processing, sharing, and
distributing this data requires faster and faster networks.
Intelligent adapters, which take on more of the network processing from the server, are
becoming critically important in helping servers cope with the onslaught of
traffic running at Gigabit/second speeds. To maximize server CPU efficiency for
an effective Gigabit Ethernet implementation, adapters should not only perform
TCP/IP checksum, interrupt coalescing, and byte swapping, but also enable the
reduction of host data copy operations.
The HP Gigabit Ethernet LAN solutions perform all of these functions and fully support
the IEEE 802.3ab and 802.3z standards for Gigabit operations. These
high-performance, standards-based, scalable network links allow customers to
move large amounts of data quickly while leveraging their existing investments
in Ethernet technology.
The HP PCI and PCI-X Gigabit LAN adapters provide 1000 Mbps bandwidth over existing copper
wire and fiber-optic cables and are available with 1, 2, or 4-ports. The
1000Base-T LAN adapter supports both the CAT 5 and CAT 5e (enhanced) cabling
standards. This allows superior investment protection in the existing copper
cabling infrastructure.
The 1000Base-T adapter automatically detects the speed of the associated device as
10-, 100-, or 1000Base-T so it may be deployed immediately in any Ethernet
environment. All the Gigabit LAN adapters are based on the same Ethernet
standards already widely deployed in the marketplace, and they allow migration
from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps to 1000 Mbps quickly and easily, with fast deployment
and minimal training needed.
The Gigabit LAN adapters are also supported with HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) software
(J4240AA). Up to 4 Gigabit Ethernet links can be logically aggregated together
to form a single, extremely high-bandwidth channel with one IP address,
automatic link failover, and load
balancing.
In addition, HP Gigabit Ethernet adapters support HP-UX VLANs (virtual LANs). This solution
offers IT managers a powerful tool that simplifies the tasks of building,
managing, and securing complex network infrastructures. Physical LANs can be
segmented into smaller logical or "virtual" LANS, allowing broadcast traffic to
be reduced, thereby improving overall network performance. Now a change to
network topology no longer requires those dreaded trips to the wiring closet!
HP-UX VLAN is compliant with host-based IEEE 802.1Q VLAN
tagging, IEEE 802.1p (later incorporated in IEEE 802.1D) priority encoding, and
IP Type of Service (ToS)-802.1p priority conversion.
Other key features of HP-UX VLAN include:
- IP subnet-based, protocol-based, and port-based VLAN support
- supported on HP-UX 11i
- configuration using well-known HP-UX tools–lanadmin (CLI) and SAM (GUI)
- 1024 VLANs per NIC port
- designed to work seamlessly with HP high-availability products, such as MC/Serviceguard
- no changes to applications required
- preserve VLAN configuration across reboot
If you would like more information regarding HP-UX VLAN
functionality, please refer to the "Planning and Implementing VLANs with HP-UX"
white paper, located at http://www.hp.com/go/vlan.
Customer benefits
- increase network performance–1000 Mbps
- lower networking management costs
- leverage existing Ethernet infrastructures–including widely deployed CAT 5 cabling for 1000Base-T
- maximize CPU efficiency, thus lowering total cost of ownership
- minimize downtime with full high availability
Application areas
- Web-based Internet/intranet information distribution and transaction processing require both fast response times and high availability
- high-productivity client/server systems require high-bandwidth, high-availability paths between the client, server, and data
- networking backbones–Gigabit aggregates 10/100Base traffic; the Gigabit links can also be aggregated with Auto Port Aggregation to create multi-Gigabit, high-bandwidth backbones
- database backup demands very high bandwidth and availability to ensure one-pass backup
- solutions requiring high-performance connections for voice, video, streaming, multimedia, and high-end applications
- network-attached storage
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