PSARC 2007/611 Intel 10GbE PCIE NIC Driver

[Kais Belgaied]

Cecilia Hu wrote:
>
>> Cecilia Hu wrote:
>>>
>>>     The architecture of the Intel 10GbE PCI Express Adapter differs
>>>     significantly from the Intel 82597EX based PCIX Adapter, which is
>>>     supported by ixgb. An important new feature of this adapter is 
>>> I/OAT
>>>     (I/O Acceleration Technology) from Intel which will be helpful for
>>>     performance improvement. So we introduce a new driver to support 
>>> them.
>>
>> let's see. I/O AT is a collection of new capabilities that may 
>> involve the NIC, the chipset and/or
>> the CPU.
>> Could you say more about which of these capabilities that this case 
>> will be using/supporting?
>
> This driver can use the capabilities of NIC, chipset and CPU, but it will
> support the I/OAT features only after framework is ready.

so I take it there is another framework in Solaris that exposes the I/O 
AT features, right?
This case depends on that framework in order to deliver its support for 
key performance functionality.
This case imports interfaces from that framework. Is that a fair 
understanding?


>> Also looking at Intel's docs (and previous presentations), there is a 
>> hint to a need for an "optimized
>> TCP/IP stack" in order to benefit from I/O  AT. (see for instance 
>> http://download.intel.com/technology/comms/perfnet/download/98856.pdf).
>> Is this case introducing changes for the OpenSolaris TCP/IP stack to 
>> be able to use I/OAT ? Any new
>> interfaces needed to negotiate such capabs?
>
> This case only covers the implementation of this driver. It will not
> introduce changes for the OpenSolaris TCP/IP stack either.

Given the fact that the case included support for I/O AT features to 
help performance, and
given the observation that other  Operating systems needed to change 
their TCP/IP stack is addition
to the driver in order to benefit from I/O AT, can this case be 
considered complete without
the TCP/IP stack changes? can it deliver any performance benefit at all 
without those changes?

    Kais