The Allied Telesis ANC10 dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet PCI-Express Network Adapters feature SR-IOV offload combined with standard Ethernet functionality. Together, these features provide the necessary performance and bandwidth critical to I/O-intensive applications such as virtualization and High Performance Computing (HPC).

Optimized for virtualization
Using multi-port cards in virtualized environments is critical to the application in order to provide redundancy and data connectivity for the workloads in virtual machines. Due to specific slot limitations, and the need for redundancy/data connectivity, it is usually recommended that virtualized servers use 10 Gigabit ports to satisfy the I/O demands.

Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMware Direct-Path)
VMware Direct-Path (SR-IOV) reduces I/O overhead on the hypervisor in a virtualized server by performing data sorting and uniting it in the network silicon. This feature requires an operating system (OS) that supports VMware Direct-Path (SR-IOV).

Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDQ) make use of multiple queues in the network controller. As data packets enter the card, they are sorted, and packets travelling to the same destination or virtual machine are grouped together in a single queue. The packets are sent to the hypervisor, which directs them to their respective virtual machines. Removing the strain of packet filtering and sorting from the hypervisor improves overall CPU usage and throughput.

The ANC10 provides improved performance with next-generation technology (VMware Direct-Path, Netqueue, SR-IOV), which includes features such as loop back (inter-VM communication) and priority-weighted bandwidth management. The number of data queues per port is increased to 64, and the interface card also supports multicast and broadcast data on a virtualized server.

Superior functionality
The ANC10S includes dedicated hardware and processors to process frames at the highest levels in the operating system for both transmit and receive paths - advantageous for virtualization applications.

More bandwidth with PCIe
The PCI-Express (PCIe) design provides the maximum possible bandwidth and bus efficiency. Other benefits include capability and low power consumption.

Performance and reliability
Allied Telesis validates its Network Adapters over a variety of operating systems and platforms, ensuring compatibility. The ANC10S takes full advantage of the PCI-Express bus architecture to maximize network throughput. Teaming enables Smart Load Balancing (SLB), which helps increase throughput and fault tolerance when multiple adapters are configured to share traffic and provide data reliability with failover.

Powerful control software
The ANC10S provides an unprecedented level of governance across the entire network, enabling detailed tests, analysis, and diagnostics for each network adapter installed in the system. It includes utilities to help configure VLANs and set up teams for link aggregation, SLB, failover, and more.

The ANC10S includes a comprehensive Microsoft Windows utility which performs detailed tests, diagnostics and analysis.