Performance and Recommended Use of AB287A 10 Gigabit Ethernet Cards

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Figure 4:10GigE throughput at 1500MTU
Recommended Use Based on Performance and Design
HP recommends the following usage model to achieve the best performance:
• Run the AB287A cards in the highest performing PCI-X slots. Slots 3, 4, 5 and 6 on
each of the I/O partitions are the recommended high performance PCI-X slots in the
HP Integrity rx7640 used in our performance testing. Please refer to the appropriate
Server Installation Guide for information on how to identify high performance slots.
§ Configure Jumbo Frames (9000MTU) if possible. Jumbo Frames can provide excellent
throughput with reduced CPU overhead. However, Jumbo Frames may not be usable
in all topologies. Please refer to the HP document “Boosting server-to-server Gigabit
Throughput with Jumbo Frames” for more information on advantages and
recommended usage models.
• The 10Gigabit software is optimized for multiprocessor support. Best performance
will be achieved when running multiple data streams (TCP connections, for example)
on a system with four or more processors configured. The software will automatically
assign appropriate processor resources to each data stream. This feature needs the
following patches and enhancement products to be installed: TOUR 3.0 (Transport
Optional Update release), PHNE_32277 (Streams Cumulative Patch), PHNE_33429
(LAN cumulative patch) and AR0512 release of IP Filter.