Broadcom Announces Portfolio of Best-in-Class Ethernet Adapters and LOMs for Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Servers

Dell is offering a wide range of new Broadcom-powered solutions for its 12th generation servers (seven new products) that include dual-port and quad-port network daughter cards (NDCs), network Interface cards (NICs), converged network adapters (CNAs) and Mezzanine cards. These devices are designed for a wide variety of network configurations and are fully compatible with Dell PowerEdge® blade and rack servers.

Increasing demands for server virtualization, cloud computing, and I/O intensive applications are driving the need for greater processing capabilities in enterprise networks and data centers. According to a recent survey by IDC, top priorities for IT managers in 2012 will include increasing adoption of virtualization, improving system management and adding new servers.(3) Broadcom's latest Ethernet adapter solutions are engineered to help IT managers meet these demands while leveraging features and benefits that are associated with the new Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers.

Broadcom's NetXtreme Ethernet adapters feature a highly-integrated 40nm single-chip solution that combines the company's media access controllers (MACs) with its physical layer transceivers (PHYs). Engineered for use with 12G multi-core servers, the adapters deliver full line-rate throughput across all ports. To support enterprise and data center efficiency and scalability requirements, the adapters offer advanced functionality such as switch-independent NIC partitioning and IEEE 1588 time synchronization. They also take advantage of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE), enabling lower power consumption (up to 42 percent less) for reduced IT operating costs.*

Industry Leading 10GbE Performance
Broadcom's new line of 10GbE Ethernet adapters deliver line rate throughput that is 37 percent faster than the nearest competitor.(1) The 10GbE adapters also provide full support of iSCSI and FCoE offload storage protocols and are capable of delivering up to 1.5 Million iSCSI I/Os per second (IOPS), 120 percent higher than the nearest competitor.(2) These adapters are optimized for virtualization by uniting data and storage networks on a common 10GbE fabric. By taking advantage of switch-independent NIC partitioning, Broadcom's solutions allow the server to adapt to a broad range of bandwidth configurations that reduce power and cooling costs while minimizing overall system complexity.

Dell has chosen Broadcom's new 1G and 10G network daughter cards (NDCs) to be the default offering across the Dell PowerEdge 12th generation server portfolio. The products were recognized by Dell for delivering best-in-class performance and functionality.

Market Drivers:
• Increasing traffic and richer content continues to grow on the Internet(4)
• Adoption of virtualization and other new server technologies/solutions viewed a priority by IT managers(3)
• Server-class network ports growing — total shipments to grow in excess of 20 percent in 2011(4)
• Increase in server-to-server communications(4)
• Ethernet adapters optimized for Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers are a clear requirement for next-generation networks

Key Features:
• PCI Express® (PCIe™) Gen2.0 x8 (5GT/s) support
• Full line-rate performance across all ports
• Broad OS and hypervisor support
• Full iSCSI, FCoE-ready*, HBA-level hardware protocol offload
• Full TCP/IP hardware offload* engine (TOE)
• Switch Independent NIC partitioning — up to four partitioning assignments per 10GbE link*
• SR-IOV ready*
• Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)*
• IEEE 1588 time precision protocol*

Availability
All Broadcom devices listed above are now shipping by Dell.