FNN vs GigabitEther & Myrinet

[Velocet]

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On Tue, Oct 23, 2001 at 10:50:09PM -0400, Patrick Geoffray's all...
> Hi,
> 
> Velocet wrote:
> 
> > (These questions apply to myrinet as well, obviously noting that its
> > highly optimized and better performance than GbE but also more expensive.)
> 
> I am always surprised by this statement. It's natural because the GigE NICs 
> are much (MUCH) less expensive than Myrinet's ones. However, the total 
> price per node is another story for medium/large configuration: GigE switches 
> are still (too) expensive for 32+ ports. I don't know if there is a technical 
> reason or if the market is large enough to keep a high price tag.

Certain topologies (FNN, or others) avoid the need for huge switches
with full-speed fabric on them, for certain cluster applications. (now
instead of having node topolgies as a big configuration factor, now
you have switch to switch topology concerns).

> IP stack. Folks from the project project at Duke used a such IP stack in 
> FreeBSD to reach 2 Gb/s TCP over Myrinet. Without this special kernel and 
> driver, the same hardware provides 1.2 Gb/s TCP with the Linux 2.4 IP stack.
> It was way less efficient with 2.2 kernels.

Hows FreeBSD at GbE? Close to linux 2.4? Which GbE cards have the most
efficient chipsets and drivers under linux and freeBSD?

Thanks for the help.

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase, math at velocet.ca  *  Velocet Communications Inc.  *  Toronto, CANADA