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Solarflare Unveils Latest Generation of Ethernet Adapters for Scaling Mission-Critical Data Centers

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As the market leader in application-intelligent networking solutions, Solarflare has always been one step ahead of the competition in providing the best low latency, Onload®, high packet capture adapter solutions. This week Solarflare has innovated its networking solutions even further, with the release of its next generation of 10/40 Gb ethernet platforms.

Meet the New Flareon® Family

Powered by a configurable suite of software options, the Flareon Ultra SFN8500 family of Ethernet adapters is designed to accelerate, monitor and secure scaling flow-aware, cloud-based data center environments. Added to the 7000 series already impressive low latency capabilities, the 8000 series offers even more acceleration capabilities, along with enhanced security features that offer additional protection at the Network Interface level including:

  • Ultra-low sub-microsecond latency with Onload kernel bypass
  • Class leading clock synchronization accuracy and hardware time stamping
  • Scalable, High-Performance Virtualization with 2048 vNICs, SR-IOV, overlay network acceleration e.g. VXLAN, NVGRE

This latest generation of adapters has been designed for customers in need of large scale high performance data solutions, including stock exchanges, commercial banks and other mission-critical data applications. Designed with cyber security, low latency, and high capacity and bandwidth in mind, the SFN8542 (40GbE) and SFN8522 (10GbE) combine a powerful set of features that enable data centers to implement hardware-based micro-segmentation with an enterprise-managed gateway in every server, including:

  • Less than 1 microsecond TCP half round trip latency
  • Greater than 60 Mbps frame processing rates
  • 16 lanes of PCIe Gen 3.1, with full dual 40 Gb/s sustained bidirectional bandwidth
  • Stratum 3E temperature-compensated oscillator
  • Flexible layer 2-4 flow processing and flow steering
  • Full stateless offload support, including double checksum and reassembly for network overlay protocols

Next-Generation Network Protection

Data centers can now better target multiple business-critical issues including mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, data lockdown, data exfiltration, monitoring and capture requirements, precision hardware time stamping and data loss, as well as improving overall system performance. The Flareon Ultra SFN8500 products also incorporate MIFID II readiness, enabling customers to comply with upcoming EU regulatory requirements.

How this Upgrade Will Revolutionize Cloud Performance

Russell Stern, Solarflare’s President and CEO, announced the new generation of adapters with several mission-critical goals in mind. “With our new generation of technology we are revolutionizing the way in which enterprises can scale and secure their data centers. The Flareon Ultra SFN8500 hardware, together with our innovative software, will enable our customers to build out private cloud networks and run the critical applications they were not previously able to. As cyber security becomes the biggest challenge and priority for mission-critical data centers, a number of our customers have already begun using our new products to great impact and we are excited to announce our plans for their general availability.”

The Flareon Ultra SFN8542 and SFN8522, together with the comprehensive suite of software options are now starting to ship.

Solarflare’s TAA Compliant Adapters are Ready to Boost Government Network Security

Solarflare’s TAA Compliant Adapters are Ready to Boost Government Network Security

In an exciting move for Solarflare, Flareon server adapters are now TAA (Trade Agreements Act) compliant, meaning that the United States federal government and defense agencies can now take advantage of Solarflare’s technology. Given Solarflare’s market leadership in providing networking solutions to many demanding customers in the fintech space, TAA compliance is the next logical step for a company uniquely equipped to handle the networking demands of the U.S. government.

Delivering high performance and latency reducing functionality, Flareon Ultra dual-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and Flareon 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) server adapters will enable critical government networks to accelerate, monitor and secure their infrastructures.

Solarflare’s Flareon server adapters increase network efficiency through guaranteed, dedicated performance that meets the escalating requirements of applications, including:

  • Cloud infrastructures
  • Virtualized data centers
  • Web 2.0 applications
  • Content delivery networks (CDNs)
  • Big data
  • High-performance computing services.

Flareon adapters support the PCIe 3.0 server interface, a premier network platform for enabling next-generation cloud computing and software defined networks (SDNs). Through a unique combination of software and hardware architecture, these adapters enable network functions virtualization (NFV) and SDN service chaining within the server. Ultra-low latency features such as direct packet transfer (TxPIO) mode, including a templated send API, supports the PCIe interface. CPU loads are reduced while packet delivery is optimized through UDP multicast replication, integrated layer 2 switching capability and VLAN insertion/removal, along with TCP segmentation offload (TSO).

As government network performance and security measures continue to grow in importance, Solarflare’s ability to provide reliable and proven solutions to the U.S. government is an important step in monitoring, accelerating, and securing the most critical of networks.

As Solarflare CEO Russell Stern recently put it, “Government IT managers face large scale IT problems and Solarflare’s technology is built to provide the extra processing horsepower that these organizations need to accomplish their mission. Solarflare’s technology provides the first real integration of both high performance computing and endpoint security from the same hardware investment.” By streamlining performance and security within Flareon technology, networks no longer have to sacrifice performance in order to receive proactive protected.

US Government customers can purchase Solarflare Flareon through ClearShark, a leading IT solutions provider and systems integrator for the government and commercial sectors.

ClearShark is excited about the move. As Director of Engineering and Technology Finn Ramsland, Sr. said, “Solarflare’s TAA compliant status enables us to sell their best of breed products to government customers who demand a high level of performance including enhanced, real-time intelligence processing and security capabilities.”

 

What Hacking the Pentagon Can Teach Us About Network Security

What Hacking the Pentagon Can Teach Us About Network Security

The United States Pentagon has recently announced plans to encourage approved hackers to help identify flaws in the Department of Defense (DoD) websites. Taking a cue from large scale companies like Facebook and Google, the “Hack the Pentagon” competition shows the Pentagon moving toward a more proactive network security approach. While it may seem counterintuitive to invite hackers to your site, offering incentive for programmers to identify loopholes—which can then be remedied before any permanent damage is done—is actually a smart approach to staying ahead of security breaches.

The competition is the first big initiative of the Defense Digital Service (DDS), a government department created last year to bring tech experts and greater network security awareness into the military. While details of the Hack the Pentagon competition are still under wraps, there may be a cash incentive for identifying site weaknesses, similar to the scaled bug bounty competitions that Facebook has hosted, to the tune of $4 million payouts.

It’s encouraging to see the government embracing a proactive approach to network security and ushering in the first ever government sponsored hacking competition. Of course competitors will go through a full background check and vetting process first—this is the government we’re talking about.

“I am always challenging our people to think outside the five-sided box that is the Pentagon,” said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.  “Inviting responsible hackers to test our cybersecurity certainly meets that test.  I am confident this innovative initiative will strengthen our digital defenses and ultimately enhance our national security.”

Even if you’re not hosting your own bug bounty competition, embracing a multi-layered security approach is mission critical. Here are three ways you can boost your network security to safeguard against security breaches—all while keeping performance standards fast, secure and reliable.

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1. Protect Your Perimeter

The network server is the number one target of cyber attacks, because this piece of hardware is where crucial client and institutional data is stored. Defense in depth begins at the perimeter level, much like a moat surrounding a castle from possible intruders.

The core of Solarflare’s DDoS server attack mitigation is SolarSecure– a high performance packet filter engine that enables “bad” traffic to be detected very early in the network stack, so DDoS attacks can be absorbed without the degradation of “good” traffic. The filtering engine allows for individual packets to be inspected, limited or blocked based on their contents.

In the face of DDoS attacks,  servers enabled with the SolarSecure were found to be 3 to 4 times more effective at packet filtering than iptables. This is a great way to identify and slow down potential threats before they escalate to a level where real damage is done.

2. Layer Your Defenses

The second phase of protection involves internal network segmentation. Multitenant cloud environments help defend against the spread of threats across the entire network. Partitioning off infected areas, new policies, filters and access control lists can be implemented to protect critical data from unauthenticated users.

Capture SolarSystem enables packet capture deployment on the top of every server rack in the data center, providing enhanced “DVR-like” real time lossless data recording. CSS mitigates cybersecurity risk by providing greater visibility into enterprise network, enabling prevention of hostile intrusion and data theft.

3. Close the Gap

Once a company can identify where its vulnerabilities lie, it can proactively mitigate risks to the perimeter and inner layers. Machine learning and optimizing data management and analytics allows companies to build the capability to analyze all data on their networks. Having this detailed trail of information will be more important than ever before in the age of breaches.

SolarFlare’s recent partnerships allows for customized solutions that bridge the gap between detecting breaches, preventing breaches, and ensuring that there is no exfiltration of sensitive assets from servers.

Companies can use these strategies and Solarflare’s security tools to help mitigate the cost of prevention and reduce the time of detection, creating a cost-effective security strategy. As large enterprises continue to be targeted by evolving hacking methods, a multilayered defense plan at the server level is essential.

 

Solarflare’s Latest Partnership Provides Gold Standard Server Solutions for Traders

Solarflare’s Latest Partnership Provides Gold Standard Server Solutions for Traders

Chi-X Australia, the second largest trading venue in the Australian market, recently took steps to ensure their networking capabilities were best in class by partnering with Solarflare. By implementing the Flareon Ultra™ 7122 Series 10GbE PCIe 3.0 server I/O adapters, Chi-X Australia will be able to offer market participants the ability to accelerate the speed and efficiency of their trading strategies by providing ultra-low latency connectivity and enhanced packet processing. This is the latest example of how Solarflare continues to power the future of financial institutions’ complex networking needs.

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Launched in 2011 as an alternative trading venue for ASX-listed securities, today Chi-X Australia regularly records over $1BN daily trading activity and a total market share of over 20%. They’ve achieved sweeping success by taking an innovative approach to order types and cost effective product offerings that have attracted nearly 40 market participants. It’s a great next step to see Chi-X extending its innovation to its server needs, where even shaving a few hundredths of a millisecond off trade speed provides a huge competitive advantage for platforms that deal in high frequency and algorithmic trading strategies.

“Solarflare’s technology has become the gold standard for electronic trading innovation,” said Mike Aikins, CTO of Chi-X Australia. “We have already begun to see significant improvements to the efficiency and throughput of our daily network traffic, and look forward to working with Solarflare to provide our trading partners with the connectivity and market access they have come to expect from Chi-X Australia.”

 

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Chi-X Australia will be deploying Solarflare’s adapter technology as part of their core matching engine, and will be leveraging the company’s Open Onload application accelerator to provide robust, compliant TCP processing with extremely low latency for best in class trade execution. This is an exciting partnership that further extends Solarflare’s reach in global financial trading exchanges, fueling top market performance by providing the fastest, most stable and secure networking solutions available.

 

Afraid of Security Breaches? Boost Your Server Protection

Afraid of Security Breaches? Boost Your Server Protection

News of the recent large scale security breach at networking company Juniper is just the latest example of why corporations should actively increase their cyber defense. While the FBI is currently investigating the back door hack that potentially compromised 3 years worth of highly classified data, the take away here should be that all companies looking to protect data and customer information should implement a multi-layered defense system for their networks.

Solarflare is the leader in secure network solutions, by proactively approaching security from multiple points of possible infiltration. Particularly for financial institutions or other industries with highly sensitive information, maintaining uninterrupted performance across applications while ensuring the earliest possible detection of breaches is essential. Here’s a three step plan to keep your network safe, secure, and speedy:

1. Proactively Protect the Server Perimeter

The network server is the number one target of cyber attacks, because this piece of hardware is where crucial client and institutional data is stored. Defense in depth begins at the perimeter level, much like a moat surrounding a castle from possible intruders.

The core of Solarflare’s DDoS server attack mitigation is SolarSecure– a high performance packet filter engine that enables “bad” traffic to be detected very early in the network stack, so DDoS attacks can be absorbed without the degradation of “good” traffic. The filtering engine allows for individual packets to be inspected, limited or blocked based on their contents.

In the face of DDoS attacks,  servers enabled with the SolarSecure were found to be 3 to 4 times more effective at packet filtering than iptables. This is a great way to identify and slow down potential threats before they escalate to a level where real damage is done.

2. Build Layered Defenses

The second phase of protection involves internal network segmentation. Multitenant cloud environments help defend against the spread of threats across the entire network. Partitioning off infected areas, new policies, filters and access control lists can be implemented to protect critical data from unauthenticated users.

Solarflare’s Capture SolarSecure (CSS) enables packet capture deployment on the top of every server rack in the data center, providing enhanced “DVR-like” real time lossless data recording. For financial institutions in particular, CSS provides greater threat mitigation, regulatory compliance requirements, and optimized trade execution management with precise time stamping capabilities. CSS mitigates cybersecurity risk by providing greater visibility into enterprise network, enabling prevention of hostile intrusion and data theft.

3. Close the Gap

Once a company can identify where its vulnerabilities lie, it can proactively mitigate risks to the perimeter and inner layers. Machine learning and optimizing data management and analytics allows companies to build the capability to analyze all the data on their networks. Having this detailed trail of information will be more important than ever before, as security regulations tighten in the face of ongoing large scale security breaches like the one at Jupiter.

 

SolarFlare’s recent partnership with Velocimetrics provides this kind of forward-thinking analysis, allowing all financial orders and trades to be tracked in real time. This is the kind of customized solution that more companies would do well to implement to bridge the gap between detecting breaches, preventing breaches, and ensuring that there is no exfiltration of sensitive assets from servers.

Companies can use these strategies and Solarflare’s security tools to help mitigate the cost of prevention and reduce the time of detection, creating a cost-effective security strategy. As large enterprises continue to be targeted by evolving hacking methods, a multilayered defense plan at the server level is essential.

 

Solarflare to Speak at STAC Summit in London

Solarflare to Speak at STAC Summit in London

Solarflare will be speaking along with other industry leaders at the upcoming Securities Technologies Analysis Center summits(STAC) in London and New York. STAC Summits bring together industry leaders from top financial and technology firms to discuss the latest business issues and technical trends around big data, fast data and big compute.

 

Solarflare will speak to how financial services can improve networked instrumentation and time stamping reportable events. This is a crucial topic for firms that perform high frequency trading, as increasing regulations calling for precise time stamping are already being rolled out in Europe in the MIFID II regulations have been finalized in Europe and will roll out by 2017. SEC regulations on time stamping are also a big topic of discussion, with possibly stricter regulations on the horizon for U.S. traders as well.

 

By combining low latency servers with built-in precise time stamping of every trade, Solarflare’s technology enables global financial services to stay ahead of regulations, while also gleaning important data during every stage of a trade’s life cycle. Here are four ways Solarflare provides the best network solutions for HFT network environments:

 

1. Solarflare enables all instrumented (and “reportable”) events across both applications (software) and the network (hardware) to leverage time-stamps that are precise, accurate and comparable.

 

2.  Our network adapter technology provides best-in-class performance and efficiency, simultaneously supporting time synchronization (hardware-assisted, adapter to adapter and adapter to host), timestamping of frames, and line-rate kernel-bypass packet capture that exceed forthcoming MIFID II data logging requirements.

 

3. SolarCapture Pro enables multiple parallel instances of applications to process captured data, eliminating application and host bottlenecks that can cause dropped packets. This allows the application to process millions of packets per second, and can be configured to spread capture loads over a larger number of network cores to reduce processing times.

 

4. Capture SolarSystem provides a high-performance turn-key packet capture and persistence platform for direct consumption of network traffic, making it easier to simultaneously capture and index data in real-time.

 

The STAC Summit should provide great discussion and insights among industry leaders as financial services must look to improve performance, security, and find cost-effective ways to comply with increasing regulations on high frequency trading.

 

Solarflare & Velocimetrics Combine Forces for Increased Trading Capabilities

Solarflare & Velocimetrics Combine Forces for Increased Trading Capabilities

High volume trading firms are about to get supercharged real-time packet capture management and analytic tools, thanks to the recent partnership between Solarflare and leading performance analytics firm Velocimetrics. Combining Solarflare’s Capture SolarSystem (CSS)—a breakthrough cost effective, distributed, flexible, and openly architected packet capture platform—with Velocimetrics’ financial analytics enables orders and trades to be tracked in real-time. This is exciting because for the first time, unexpected behavior—from thresholds being reached to a client SLA in danger of being breached— will be able to be detected instantly, allowing for live analysis and issue alerting.

 

CSS brings lower costs to packet capture technology, as well as the ability for users to build customized solutions. Beyond that, what CSS really offers is a breakthrough method for providing real time packet capture on a per server basis with a top of rack analytics capture capability. The packets are then streamed live to Velocimetrics, where they receive real-time network and business content analysis and alerting. Through this approach, players in capital markets can examine trading data from a more comprehensive standpoint, with CSS time stamping trades as well as sniffing for potentially bad packets.

 

Screen Shot 2015-10-29 at 4.53.48 PMThis is an innovative new approach to processing server data, especially in the financial realms. Instead of large and expensive packet and analysis boxes that manage and analyze server data haphazardly, CSS captures every packet that passes through every network server, allowing for analytics on a more local basis. Because Solarflare’s technology already accelerates, monitors, and secures server traffic so well, partnering with a top financial analytic firm like Velocimetrics is the next logical step. Velocimetrics can analyze the complex data it receives from CSS, thereby providing its customers with real time, in-depth analysis of the paths of every order and trade as it moves through complicated business processes. Traders benefit from this individualized statistical analysis at every stage, getting both a macro and micro view of what is happening all across their trading environment. Potential problems or discrepancies can immediately be reconciled through notifications of emerging performance, operation risk, customer experience or regulatory concerns.  Ultimately, this seamless flow of information will help traders maintain a competitive edge in today’s complex financial environments.

 

Packet capture is fundamental for network monitoring and analysis, but also as the first line of defense in network security workflows. So it’s no surprise that trading firms are eager for new levels of visibility into network performance. As Velocimetrics COO Paul Spencer said, “Solarflare’s turnkey, real-time, distributed capture technology is proving to be attractive for many financial companies looking for a more financially viable and customizable solution for large scale deployments. Capture SolarSystem is a comprehensive capture solution that can now be fully integrated with both TipOff and Velocimetrics, providing the ideal complement to our advanced network, middleware, market data and business-level analytics.”

 

This exciting partnership has the potential to increase efficiencies across the network for global trading firms and their customers. It also allows firms a way to satisfy emerging regulatory commitments and measure performance against client SLAs. Essentially, the one-two punch of Solarflare plus Velocimetrics boosts performance capabilities for global firms in immediate and powerful ways.

 

 

Anticipating & Attacking Network Breaches

Anticipating & Attacking Network Breaches

It’s hard to look at the news lately without seeing another story about an international corporation dealing with a massive security breach. 2014 attacks at Sony and JPMorgan Chase stole the headlines, while 2015 has brought major headaches to Ashley Madison. Most recently, the breach at British telecom firm TalkTalk—which potentially compromised 4 million users’ sensitive bank data— highlights larger issues that all enterprises must actively work to safeguard against.

talktalk-mpa-blockAs details continue to emerge about the massive DDoS attack on TalkTalk’s server, the company is taking heat for disregarding security vulnerabilities that were raised in the past. Ashley Madison’s hack was also the result of weak security measures that relied on encrypted passwords. These breaches should all serve as serious warnings to enterprises to beef up their security measures to protect not only their own sensitive data, but also that of their customers.

 

From DDoS attacks to embedded approaches like phishing or malware, hacking methods continue to evolve. Traditionally, enterprises have focused on fortifying the perimeter to mitigate attacks. But large amounts of data pass through network sub-systems, meaning that every level of the server should be protected. A company’s best line of defense is in implementing low latency, high-frequency packet capture solutions to increase security not only on the perimeter, but at the top of every rack or within every server.

 

Solarflare’s approach to security is to assume that attacks will happen. But instead of letting an intruder have access to the entire castle just because they crossed the moat, Solarflare’s packet capture approach adds a new layer of protection at the server level. Think of it as a series of safes, locking your valuables up separately to prevent unwelcome visitors from running off with all the crown jewels.

 

The core of Solarflare’s DDoS attack mitigation consists of a high performance packet filter engine that uses a pseudo-microcode instruction set to configure the filter engine to selectively accept, reject or rate-limit packets based on packet headers and packet contents. The microcode used for filtering is under user control, making the filtering behavior highly configurable. This packet capture approach allows “bad” traffic to be detected very early in the network stack, so DDoS attacks can be absorbed without degradation of “good” traffic. The filter engine provides the ability to efficiently block or rate limit packets based on their contents, as well as request level deep packet inspection. For example, HTTP requests can be inspected and connections aborted dependent on the contents of the HTTP headers.

 

In the face of DDoS attacks,  servers enabled with the SolarSecure Filter Engine were found to be 3 to 4 times more effective at packet filtering than iptables. This is a great way to identify and slow down potential threats before situations escalate to the disastrous level that TalkTalk is now facing.

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The second phase of protection involves internal network segmentation. Multitenant cloud environments help defend against the spread of threats across the entire network. Partitioning off infected areas, new policies, filters and access control lists can be implemented to protect critical data from unauthenticated users.

 

The future of network security—and the best way to stay one step ahead of potential hacks— is in this multi-layered packet capture approach. As large enterprises continue to be targeted by evolving hacking methods, a multilayered defense plan at the server level is essential.

 

Solarflare’s Latest Technology Delivers Breakthrough 300 Nanosecond Trade Processing

Solarflare’s Latest Technology Delivers Breakthrough 300 Nanosecond Trade Processing

Screen Shot 2015-10-20 at 2.03.51 PMFrom its unrivaled architectural flexibility to its lightning fast acceleration capabilities, Solarflare’s second-generation ApplicationOnload Engine (AOE) server adapter is a massive breakthrough in ultra-low latency networking.

The AOE is the industry’s only FPGA-integrated 40Gb Ethernet server adapter. By providing world-class adapter hardware, a high-performance Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and a robust firmware development kit (FDK), the AOE allows users to customize applications and tailor on-the-fly performance to specific trading environments. This fully revamped AOE gives existing customers more options, while the new half-length form factor means the AOE can be implemented by a variety of users. Solarflare’s new AOE can massively accelerate user applications, including high frequency trading, virtualization, big data, and high performance computing environments.

Three ways Solarflare’s new AOE is a game changer: 

1. AOE’s open platform allows for processing network data on the fly, enabling users to accelerate applications by migrating portions of their business logic into hardware.

2. AOE’s network interface can be augmented with new features, such as monitoring and security. This means users who are building out network-intensive applications that require extreme low latency won’t pay a performance penalty.

3. A nanosecond TCP stack (ANTS) enables TCP-based applications to be implemented entirely on the FPGA. Delivering robust, compliant TCP processing with extremely low latency, ANTS scales to large numbers of TCP connections. Plus, ANTS consumes far less memory and resources than other solutions, which eliminates the need for costly TCP Offload Engines.

Essentially, the updated AOE improves server utilization by reducing CPU, memory, and I/O load—all of which increases the efficiency of processing cycles. The Open FDK allows developers to focus solely on application logic, speeding up time to implementation. And applications can leverage up to 8x10GbE or 2x40GbE interfaces. The winning combo of Solarflare’s industry-leading server I/O adapter with the latest FPGA technology – and its associated FDK – allows users to dramatically reduce trading strategy implementation times and enjoy unparalleled levels of trading performance.

How Solarflare is Making the Web and VOD 50% Faster

How Solarflare is Making the Web and VOD 50% Faster

Based on a 2014 Netcraft survey, over 146 million websites run NGINX to enhance delivery, performance and security. Put another way, 1 in 3 major websites rely on NGINX. So it’s exciting to announce that recent improvements to Solarflare’s OpenOnload stack have accelerated NGINX and NGINX Plus performance by twofold for serving high demand web and video on demand traffic. Solarflare’s OpenOnload updates lend themselves to across the board improvements for the functionality, speed, and security of high traffic sites. By delivering lower latency and higher message rates, OpenOnload is the best option for cloud and HPC applications like the millions powered by NGINX.

 

By bypassing the overheads of the Linux operating system, the OpenOnload stack accelerates applications in a big way. The latest version of OpenOnload was enhanced with features to specifically address NGINX enhancements by delivering HTTP transaction rates 2x greater than Linux kernal alternatives.  OpenOnload now supports socket caching and SO_REUSEPORT, giving NGINX-supported applications more intelligent and efficient access to the network.

 

By leveraging the efficiency and performance advantages of Solarflare’s OpenOnload application acceleration stack, NGINX users are able to use these new features to improve site and application performance, control, and security while reducing CPU utilization. This allows IT managers to do more with existing CPU resources, lowering their overall capital expenditure. For greenfield deployments, they can also save time and resources by deploying fewer cores or servers to achieve their desired network performance levels. Paul Oh, NGINX Head of Business Development, is excited about these improvements:

 

“We are excited to see Solarflare providing such comprehensive and clear performance improvements for our customers and users. Application performance, control and reliability have a direct impact on the success of today’s digital businesses. Solarflare and NGINX are working together to provide the best possible set of tools to help these companies take full advantage of the modern web.”

 

Key highlights from Solarflare’s recent performance tests include:

 

  • For HTTP traffic, the Solarflare SFN7002 10GbE server adapter with OpenOnload is three times more efficient than Linux kernel alternatives, achieving a 10Gbps line rate with only two cores, while Linux kernel alternatives require six.
  • For video on demand, in a configuration bonding two 10GbE links, the Solarflare configuration requires only two cores to achieve the maximum NGINX performance of about 18,000 simultaneous connections. In contrast, Linux kernel alternatives require three cores to saturate the bandwidth of 2×10 GbE links.
  • The Solarflare adapter with OpenOnload is therefore 1.5 times more efficient, and achieves up to 34% greater performance than Linux kernel alternatives.
  • For the VOD configuration at 40GbE, Solarflare has shown itself to be 1.67 times more efficient supporting 35,000 simultaneous connections with just 3 cores.
  • Solarflare delivers 77% higher performance than Linux kernel alternatives with its software stack.