Chelsio will present its Unified Wire adapter, based on the latest version of its proven Terminator engine architecture. The architecture's unique features allow simultaneous use of a 10Gbp Ethernet network for iSCSI storage, high performance computing using iWARP RDMA and general TCP/IP networking. The results of performance benchmarks show how both low latency and high bandwidth applications can be supported on this unified wire fabric, eliminating the need for multiple infrastructures and specialized interconnects, such as Fibre Channel and Infiniband, thereby significantly reducing the total cost of ownership.

Interactive TCP applications, such as Telnet and the Web, are particularly sensitive to network congestion. Indeed, congestion-induced queuing and packet loss can be a significant cause of large delays and variability, thereby decreasing user-perceived quality. We consider addressing these effects using service differentiation, by giving priority to interactive applications' traffic in the network. We study different packet marking schemes and handling mechanisms (packet dropping and scheduling) in the network. For marking packets, two approaches are considered. First, we look into application-based marking, and show how the protection of Telnet traffic against loss can eliminate large echo delays caused by retransmit timeouts, and how, by limiting packet loss for Web page downloads, their delays can be significantly reduced, resulting in enhanced interactivity. Second, we consider differentiation based on TCP state, where we present a marking algorithm that prioritizes packets at the source, based on each connection's window size. In addition, we describe the shaping mechanisms required for conformance to agreements with the network. We show how this marking results in good response times for short transfers, which are characteristic of interactive applications, without significantly affecting longer ones.