I've so far found only one suitable 10G CX4 adapter
for use with the Sun Fire X4500, the:

Neterion Xframe II Sun Fire CX4 PCI-X

Are there other alternatives that I've missed?

(I want the CX4 interface, not fiber. Solaris driver
support required)

- Peter
--
--
Peter Eriksson Phone: +46 13 28 2786
Computer Systems Manager/BOFH Cell/GSM: +46 705 18 2786
Physics Department, Linköping University Room: Building F, F203

Peter Eriksson wrote:
> I've so far found only one suitable 10G CX4 adapter
> for use with the Sun Fire X4500, the:
>
> Neterion Xframe II Sun Fire CX4 PCI-X
>
> Are there other alternatives that I've missed?
>
> (I want the CX4 interface, not fiber. Solaris driver
> support required)
>
> - Peter

I'm not sure on the drivers, but you may want to look at:

http://www.intel.com/Products/Server...4-overview.htm

The chipset is similar to the sun offered 10GBe card with optical ports
based off a similar chipset:

http://www.sun.com/products/networki...el/support.xml

Intel had/has a good developer/evaluation program that might be worth
checking out if you want to try out a costly card, and just send it back
if it doesn't cut it for you.

Cydrome Leader writes:

>I'm not sure on the drivers, but you may want to look at:

>http://www.intel.com/Products/Server...4-overview.htm

>The chipset is similar to the sun offered 10GBe card with optical ports
>based off a similar chipset:

I've seen that one (and almost bought one), but as far as I can tell
it isn't a low-profile variant, and thus won't fit in the X4500...

- Peter
--
--
Peter Eriksson Phone: +46 13 28 2786
Computer Systems Manager/BOFH Cell/GSM: +46 705 18 2786
Physics Department, Linköping University Room: Building F, F203

Peter Eriksson wrote:
> Cydrome Leader writes:
>
>>I'm not sure on the drivers, but you may want to look at:
>
>>http://www.intel.com/Products/Server...4-overview.htm
>
>>The chipset is similar to the sun offered 10GBe card with optical ports
>>based off a similar chipset:
>
> I've seen that one (and almost bought one), but as far as I can tell
> it isn't a low-profile variant, and thus won't fit in the X4500...
>
> - Peter

Good point- that's card is a monster in size.

It's really too bad nobody has tiny xenpak modules that take copper. I've
read about super short distance 10GBe over cat6+, but never seen the
modules, if they exist.

The full sized xenpak transcievers, copper or fiber are huge monsters.
That CX4 cable is like working with a serial cable from IBM from the
1980s.

In no particular order and with no idea of whether they have Solaris
drivers or CX4 cards which are low-profile, here are a few of the
company names I've come across (in alphabetical order, nothing more):

*) ChelsIO
*) Myricom
*) NetEffect
*) Neterion
*) NetXen
*) ServerEngines

I suspect that slapping "www." in front of those and ".com" at the end
will have a good chance of finding their websites.

rick jones
--
The glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. The glass has a leak.
The real question is "Can it be patched?"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Rick Jones wrote:
> In no particular order and with no idea of whether they have Solaris
> drivers or CX4 cards which are low-profile, here are a few of the
> company names I've come across (in alphabetical order, nothing more):
>
> *) ChelsIO
> *) Myricom

http://www.myri.com/Myri-10G/NIC/10G-PCIE-8A-C.html

I didn't know they made ethernet stuff- though it was all that infiniband
clusting stuff.

Cydrome Leader writes:

>Rick Jones wrote:
>> In no particular order and with no idea of whether they have Solaris
>> drivers or CX4 cards which are low-profile, here are a few of the
>> company names I've come across (in alphabetical order, nothing more):
>>
>> *) ChelsIO
>> *) Myricom

>http://www.myri.com/Myri-10G/NIC/10G-PCIE-8A-C.html

Wrong bus though (needs to be PCI-X, not PCI-e :-)...

Only Neterion seems to make a suitable adapter of the makers in that list.

Ah well..

- Peter
--
--
Peter Eriksson Phone: +46 13 28 2786
Computer Systems Manager/BOFH Cell/GSM: +46 705 18 2786
Physics Department, Linköping University Room: Building F, F203

Peter Eriksson wrote:
> Wrong bus though (needs to be PCI-X, not PCI-e :-)...

I'd not realized it was only a pair of low-profile 133 MHz PCI-X slots
in the X4500:

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4500/specs.xml#anchor3

That being the case, no matter how much "oomph" you have to drive the
card and how much bandwidth to the slot, being 133 MHz PCI-X will
limit you to a total of no more than about 7 Gbit/s and change total.

Of course, that does presume you have enough "oomph" to drive to that
level. A bit of quick netperf testing should show that one way or the
other

> Only Neterion seems to make a suitable adapter of the makers in that
> list.

I've played with a low-profile Neterion card before, I cannot recall
if it was in a system running Solaris or not, but Neterion's
Support/download page utters the word Solaris.

After going back and looking at my list, I think that Intel might have
had a low-profile PCI-X 10G NIC at one point.

rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...