FYI: Neat scaling idea: "Silicon TCP"
From: Mark Gaither (markg@activerse.com)
Wed, 12 May 1999 10:41:02 -0500
What do you geeks make of this?
--
Mark Gaither
>
>These people have got a nifty idea: implement TCP/IP services in
>custom chips on the NIC, so that it doesn't take up CPU cycles.
>As a result, they claim to achieve nearly double the maximum
>throughput at much lower CPU utilization rates. See:
>
> http://www.interprophet.com/demo.html
>
>This seems like such a good idea that I'm suprised most
>NICs don't do it already, but the Linux crowd has some
>nice counterpoints like (1) the massive speedup is only
>because the native NT TCP/IP stack is so bad and (2)
>custom chips can't be patched when there are bugs.
>
>In any case, it's another tactic to keep in mind if at some
>point in the future it appears our switchboards or webservices
>seem to hit a per-machine scaling limit.
>
>- Gordon
>
