Converged Network Adapter : Its Features and Advantages

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Converged Network Adapter Its Features and
Advantages
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Introduction
Main servers of large enterprise companies
must have at least two adapters Fiber Channel
Host Bus Adapter which is used to connect to
fiber channel based storage network and Ethernet
Network Interface Card which connects to Ethernet
based computer network. Converged Network
Adapters(CNA) also known as converged network
interface controller(C-NIC), converges the
functionality of both the adapters into one.
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Features of CNA

• The Converged Network Adapter (CNA) uses
  Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Express
  expansion interface to connect to the server.
• CNA supports Fiber and Copper Transceivers with
  SFP Plus Form Factor.
• The performance of the network carrying both
  network and storage traffic should be good enough
  as most of the Converged Network Adapters support
  10 GBEE (10 Gigabit Enhanced Ethernet)

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Advantages of CNA

• The main advantages of CNA are as follows
• Decreasing the number of adapters
• Offloading FCOE Protocol
• Using as Network Interface Cards
• Supporting Fiber and copper transceivers

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Decreasing the number of adapters
CNA reduces the number of adapters
required on the server. It also decreases amount
of cables, switch ports and PCI express slots.
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Offloading FCOE Protocol processing task
CNA can offload the FCOE protocol
processing task. Thus the server CPU resources
are free from doing FCOE protocol processing
task.
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Using as Network Interface Cards
When Storage Networking is not required,
Converged Network Adapters can act as stand-alone
Network-Interface-Card. The functionalities of
FCOE and FC San can be added further.
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Supporting Fiber and copper transceivers
CNA supports Fiber and Copper Transceivers
with the Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) Plus
.
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Difference between traditional and converged
network adapters
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How does CNA works
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Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that Converged
Network Adapters(CNA) can convert the FCOE
traffic into the fiber channel traffic over the
Fiber Channel Network through the FC SAN. Example
of a CNA can be IBM Qlogic 10GB CNA . There are
various other network adapters from other reputed
companies too.
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