Le jeudi 13 Avril 2006 21:04, Timothy Miller a écrit :
> On 4/12/06, Nicolas Boulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Super IO for x86 : gigabyte ethernet card 8 or 16 ports which are seen
> > from the host like one ethernet card (with pci-e speed), the card act
> > like a big switch (with a kind of routing). So you could make very fast
> > interconnection between server (imaging direct connection between calcul
> > server and file server).
>
> Back in the 90's, IIRC, some engineers came up with an FPGA-based
> switch, and it worked brilliantly.  Due to the parallelism, it could
> route packets part way through, dramatically reducing latency.  They
> didn't succeed because the venture capitalists thought its design was
> too non-traditional and therefore too risky.  To me, it's obviously a
> good idea.  (Beware of patents.)
>

It just look like 8/16 ethernet ports card. You could "hide" some feature 
(make it look like only 1 card by the host OS, add the feature to change the 
routing algorithme, ...)

> > You could also make a SATA RAID controller. The idea is to saturate a
> > pci-e link (2*300 MB/s). You could do it with 8 to 16 HD.
>
> Does 3ware not fill this role well?

I think they limit them self to 4 SATA ports on a card.

>
> > IO connections are the 2 domains where PC can't be compare with
> > mainframe. Standard (ethernet, SATA) put the cost down. What is lacking
> > is a card to connect the PC with the network and the HD.
>
> What can you achieve here that separate NICs and SATA cards can't?

It's hard and expensive to put more than 3 or 4 pci-e card in the same 
mainboard. So the idea is to saturate the pci-e link.

The next level, is to create a "south bridge" that connectf to a 
hypertransport link. So you will have 4 GB/s link to saturate...
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