Ian Hameroff : Scalable Networking

Broadcom Takes IPsec to Task (Offload That Is)!

ianhamer — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:49:03 GMT

Our friends over at Broadcom announced on Tuesday (November 6th) a new super cool, 65nm Gigabit Ethernet controller that will incorporate support for Window Vista's IPsec Task Offload functionality!

As my boss' boss said in the press release:

"Thanks to Broadcom's inclusion of IPsec task offload support, our mutual customers will have even greater flexibility when implementing the IPsec features of Windows Vista and Windows Server® 2008," said Mike Schutz, Director of Security and Access Product Management at Microsoft. "By easing any potential performance tradeoffs, these latest NetXtreme security features will help further the adoption of such advanced Microsoft Windows security solutions as Server and Domain Isolation and Network Access Protection."

Effectively, with IPsec task offload support, many of the CPU intensive work required for hashing packets or encryption (if you're using the encryption options) can be moved to the NIC. This frees up the many CPU(s) for more interesting tasks, like running applications or surfing the web for stuff.

This means there'll be one less reason to not consider using IPsec as the great network security tool I've written about for sometime now!

-- hama

Windows File Serving: Now with More Scalability

ianhamer — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:56:45 GMT

Okay, okay.

It's been a long while.

I have no excuses. Well, at least good excuses.

I was on vacation last week.

Then there was the ramp-up to the vacation the weeks before.

Before that there was this really good TV show on.

My dog ate my Internet?

No?

Moving on: It's T-minus one day before I embark to South East Asia and my grand tour of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. I'll be heading over to speak at TechEd SEA 2007, and chillin' with some customers, partners and local SE Asia 'softies.

In preparation for my long sojourn, I was going through my Inbox (post-holiday mind you) and found that I didn't tell you about the recent (well from mid-August) joint white paper Alacritech and Microsoft did about how the Scalable Networking technologies, specifically TCP Chimney, working in concert with Alacritech's TOE NICs help improve Windows Server file server performance and scalability.

Here's a link to the white paper:

Enabling Greater Scalability and Improved File Server Performance with the Scalable Networking Pack and Alacritech Dynamic TCP Offload

Overall our joint testing showed double digit improvements in throughput and scalability over traditional NICs:

Testing showed in every case that the combination of Microsoft’s TCP Chimney Offload and the Alacritech Scalable Network Accelerators provided improvement over standard legacy NICs…as the performance demands on the server increased, the benefit of Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload and Alacritech Scalable Network Accelerators over the legacy NIC became more apparent. In every case the Alacritech Accelerators provided superior throughput over legacy NICs, while at the same time they were able to support more clients and maintain service levels longer. On average the offload solution was able to support 19% more clients and 18% more throughput while maintaining linear scalability. At their highest point, the Alacritech/TCP Chimney Offload solution provided an average of 22% greater throughput then the legacy NIC

Give the paper a read through and let us know what you think.

Meanwhile, stay tune for some updates from SE Asia over the next few weeks.

-- hama

Intel I/OAT w/ WS08 @ 1/10 GigE + More Stuff

ianhamer — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 02:54:46 GMT

I'm back (er, yet again) from another blogging hiatus, and figured I'd share with you a little news around what we're doing in Windows Server 2008 with regards to Scalable Networking.

Here's the news: our pals over at Intel recently launched a bunch of new Ethernet controllers that will "facilitate high traffic flow and optimize I/O performance" at 1 GigE and 10 GigE speeds.

These new controllers (focused on the Intel Xeon-based servers) support Intel's Scalable Networking (aka hardware-based network acceleration) technology -- I/OAT. And, we've been working closely with Intel to make sure that the latest features of I/OAT will be supported in Windows Server 2008 (take it away Henry):

"Microsoft and Intel have worked closely to deliver integrated support for Intel I/OAT in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008," said Henry Sanders, distinguished engineer and general manager of Microsoft Windows Networking. "Our mutual customers will benefit from the numerous enhancements in these products, resulting in even greater application performance and scalability on their multicore Intel® Xeon® processor-based Windows Servers."

Neat stuff!

And, don't forget that I/OAT support (via our NetDMA features) is just one of many Scalable Networking (or "High Speed Networking" -- as the team seems to really want to call it) features you'll have out of the box with Windows Server 2008. The others include TCP Chimney Offload w/ TOE NICs, Receive-side Scaling (YARSSA - Yet Another RSS Acronym), and IPsec task offload.

We are also giving a lot of thought about what the next full protocol, stateful offload we should deliver (i.e. what will be the next "Chimney Offload" offering). IPsec is a key one for us (especially since you can stack IPsec Chimney Offload on top of TCP Chimney Offload and give your network performance both barrels!

Hey, did you ever wonder where the term "Chimney" came from? I believe our own Jim Pinkerton was the ultimate "father" of the term, but here's a bit of the background:

The term Chimney was coined by thinking of data transfer as smoke and a chimney as the ability to directly move smoke out (and in) without requiring the smoke to move through the intermediate floors (intermediate protocol layers).

Well, that's enough trivia and fun facts for today. Time to get back to planning for the big global launch in February and getting WS08 out the door!

-- hama

New White Paper on Intel's I/OAT with the Scalable Networking Pack

ianhamer — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:54:14 GMT

I'm back, healthy and attempting to catch up from TechEd 2007. While it was a killer time down in Orlando, there was plenty of good stuff piled up on my desk (and in my inbox) on my return to Redmond.

One of those items on the "good stuff" pile, was a newly published white paper my marketing peers at Intel and I put together to describe how Intel's I/OAT technology works with the Scalable Networking Pack for Windows Server 2003 (and as part of Windows Server 2003 SP2).

And now, without further ado, here's a link to the paper:

Introduction to Intel I/O Acceleration Technology and the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack

To help whet your appetite to download, here's the abstract:

This white paper examines the need for IT organizations to eliminate the I/O bottlenecks that can occur in the face of ever larger volumes of network traffic. The paper describes how Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (Intel I/OAT), which uses features of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack, moves network data more efficiently through Intel Xeon processor-based servers for fast, scalable, and reliable networking. Intel I/OAT provides network acceleration that scales seamlessly across multiple Ethernet ports and is a safe and flexible choice because it is tightly integrated into Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and other popular operating systems.

Hey, don't forget to check out the other resources up on our Scalable Networking TechNet site, and also look for even more exciting networking offload support coming in Windows Server 2008.

Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 3: My First Session (Recap)

ianhamer — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:37:48 GMT

Technically it is day 4 for me, but I had a little trouble posting yesterday evening since just about all the bandwidth in my hotel was consumed. I ran the handy Speakeasy Speed Test a bunch of times and it was barely making it over 300 Kbps on the download side.

Wow!

It's slightly ironic since I presented on the topic of "Deploying High Performance and Scalable Networking with Windows Server 2008" earlier in the day. BTW, thanks to everyone who attended (nearly 460 people) and for the great evaluation feedback. Before I get to the feedback, here are a few tidbits on what I presented:

I started off with a little quiz for the audience. I flashed on the screen a photo that my wife recently took of a sandwich board sign that sits in front of the local downtown Ramada hotel in Seattle. See if you can workout what's the weird bit about this sign, I'll give you 30 seconds:

Well?

Nice job!

As you can see Max's restaurant may boast both the best breakfast in Seattle and that it is available all day long, but only between the hours of their operation (which happens to be 7a until 130p).

After that little bit of fun, I dove into my session which discussed our new TCP/IP stack in Windows Server 2008 (and Windows Vista), with a specific focus on the features that help improve performance and scalability. This included:

TCP Receive Windows Auto-Scaling
Compound TCP (CTCP)
Wireless improvements
Hardware offload and acceleration
Policy-based Quality of Service (QoS)
IPv6 (yup)

We had a good bunch of questions both during and after the session. And, if you didn't attend TechEd 2007, I'm happy to send you copy of the deck.

I did run a little over time, but the majority of the attendees were good sports and stayed as I rapidly finished up that last few slides.

Here are some the comments from attendees (thanks!):

"Excellent Presentation: I really benifited [sic] technically by attending this session! Great information, I can tell that the presenter put alot [sic] of time into preparing this session!"

"Ian ROCKED! It is difficult to get people excited about a network stack but he did it. I was hoping for more demos but the data/tests he discussed did include real-world info and that was good."

"Ian's session was enjoyable. He made it interesting and kept the presentation going at a fast pace. He had a way of taking highly technical designs and statistics and simplifying them so we could understand the benefits. He went over by 10 minutes and almost everyone stayed in the room waiting for him to finish. Thanks Ian."

"A lot of information to go over in a short amount of time."

There was also some good constructive feedback on the need for some more demos, a different description for the session, and improving the room layout. Thanks for that feedback! It really helps me do a better job with my future presentations (which one of mine is about to start!).

The 2007 Tour: From SecMan to WinHEC to Interop and on to TechEd

ianhamer — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:36:07 GMT

May.

What a crazy month!

What is it that they say?

"May comes in with a joint launch for Forefront and System Center, and goes out with a Windows Server 2008 demo for a BillG keynote at WinHEC in LA"

Maybe I'm confusing the old adage about the month of March.

Anyhow, here's a quick recap.

On May 15th, I had the distinct honor of delivering a Windows Server 2008 Security and Policy-Enforcement demo in Bill Gates' final WinHEC keynote. I already blogged about the experience, et al on the Windows Server Division's blog, but here's a real neat one:

That guy in the red circle (which I added) is me! This was the WinHEC 2007 home page on Tuesday, May 15th. I didn't even know about it until a colleague over in the Windows Server launch team sent an email blast out to the whole world.

This was followed by lots of jibs and jibes and photo doctoring.

Anyhow...it was really cool to meet the big man and show off the sweet security stuff (like NAP) in Windows Server 2008.

Well, right after WinHEC comes Interop.

Yeah, that Las Vegas conference has managed to survive.

At this year's shindig, Microsoft and TCG (Trusted Computing Group) announced that TNC (Trusted Network Connect) -- the third of the three main NAC solutions on the market -- will standardize on NAP's Statement of Health (SoH) protocol, extending NAP interop with Juniper Networks and the rest of the TCG-TNC ecosystem.

You can learn more about this in this new white paper:
Standardizing Network Access Control: TNC and Microsoft NAP to Interoperate

Next: I'm making an appearance on an upcoming Scalable Networking webcast that's being sponsored by Alacritech. We'll be chatting about TCP Chimney Offload with Alacritech's Scalable Network Accelerator line of TOE NICs.

You can learn more about this Wednesday, May 30th webcast and how to register at the following link: Enhancing Your Data Center Performance with Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload

Okay.

After all this is TechEd 2007 in sunny (and humid) Orlando, Florida.

Among the normal stuff we do at this annual company confab, I'm delivering three sessions:

SVR310 - Deploying High Performance and Scalable Networking with Windows Server 2008
Tuesday, June 5th at 2:45PM-4:00PM (Eastern) in room S220 D

SEC08-TLC - Enabling Policy-Driven Network Access
Wednesday, June 6th at 2:00PM-3:15PM (Eastern) in the Theater #2 in the Yellow TLC

SEC309 - Implementing the IPsec Simple Policy Update for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP
Thursday, June 7th at 2:45PM-4:00PM (Eastern) in room N220 E

Following TechEd, who knows?

At least I (mostly) know what's going on between now and then!

WinServer "Longhorn" B3: This time it's "Ready, Set, (Download), and Evaluate!"

ianhamer — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:01:00 GMT

That's right Windows Server "Longhorn" fans, Beta 3 is ready for your evaluation!

Simply visit http://www.microsoft.com/getbeta3, and you're halfway there to trying out the first major public preview of our next generation of Windows Server.

As our press release touts:

"[With] Beta 3, customers will see new features and enhancements that include stronger security, better performance, new server roles and features, and additional server management and remote administration tools."

What that translates to is, well, a lot of new features and functionality that are ready for "tire kicking."

Heck, we even provided a little cheat sheet to help you zero in on some of the key new features:

New and improved features in Beta 3 include the following:

Windows PowerShell is now included in the product.

Active Directory Federation Services improvements allow customers to implement new policies and make it easier to set up a relationship between trusted partners.

The Server Core installation option now comes with additional roles and enhanced functionality, such as print services and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services.

The Server Manager console includes additional remote administration tools to provide a more integrated management environment.

Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, now on by default, provides a persistent and more secure environment beginning at installation.

NAP is integrated with Microsoft Update and Windows Update to enable administrators to decide which updates are critical and set policies accordingly. It also has a new administrative interface for simplified setup, scalability and better performance.

Hey, there are two key features of mine on that list! NAP and the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Now, there's been enough written about that NAP thingy, so I'll concentrate on the Windows Firewall instead. You didn't misread the bullet above -- we have switched it on by default to help further the defense-in-depth security controls for Windows Server as well as help reduce attack surface area right out of the gate.

We started down this road with the "Post -Setup Security Update" feature in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 that switched on the newly added Windows Firewall right after install so you could safely venture on to the Internet to retrieve latest updates without increasing the risk of an unpatched vuln being exploited over the network. As you might recall, this feature was described as follows:

"Windows Firewall provides network protection after install while users update their system with the latest patches using the new Post-Setup Security Updates feature.

[Post-Setup Security Updates was] designed to protect the server from the risk of infection between the time the server is first started and the application of the most recent security updates are applied from Windows Update. If Windows Firewall is enabled and the administrator did not explicitly enable Windows Firewall using an unattended-setup script or Group Policy, Post-Setup Security Updates opens the first time an administrator logs on."

The team has been working diligently to test all the major Windows Server scenarios/workloads/roles/etc under this new "on by default" model to ensure we were able to map out the key IP service ports and related communication parameters. We've also done some neat stuff with Server Manager feature (cool stuff!) to help apply the appropriate firewall policies per the role(s)/workload(s) you enable.

I strongly encourage you to check this feature out, and learn about how this default to on works with the applications you run on top of Windows Server!

Well, my battery is just about to die (I'm at SFO getting ready to head back to SEA from the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo event here this week -- more on that later), so I better stop here so I can get this thing posted!

More TCP Offload Than You Can Shake a TOE At!

ianhamer — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 03:39:03 GMT

Last week, Alacritech (one of our Scalable Networking partners) made a pretty big announcement around expanded support for our TCP Chimney Offload architecture:

"Alacritech Unveils Industry's Most Advanced Family of Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload Compatible Scalable Network Accelerators"

"Neat!" is what you're likely saying as you parse the press release and I would agree.

The release hit the wires a half-a-week prior to the start of Spring'07 edition of Storage Networking World down in sunny San Diego.

QUICK SIDEBAR (Courtesy of Windows Sidebar): Just to prove the point of the "sunny San Diego" bit above, here is a screen shot of the current weather conditions in Redmond vs. San Diego at the time I am writing this post. As you can see, we here in Redmond, WA are facing a mind blowing 50 degree, "partly cloudy" day while the folks in S.D. are suffering through 60 and sunny. Poor, poor fools.

Back to business. The reason I mention that SNW thingy is the fact Alacritech has (besides a new spiffy look and brand) support for iSCSI acceleration that is compatible with our TCP Chimney Offload architecture (like the one found in the Scalable Networking Pack for WS03 and the recently released Server Pack 2 for WS03). Storage workloads on Windows Server (like file serving) is an area that can greatly benefit from network offload, and as you'll see in the near future, this is something Alacritech and Microsoft have been working to articulate (read: stay tuned for more details).

Nevertheless, I recommend you checkout the new line of Alacritech SNA and iSNA NICs (with their Dynamic TCP Offload Technology). If you're already using their gear, you should download this latest 9.1 driver that adds deeper support for our TCP Chimney Offload architecture.

Enjoy!

WinServer 2003 SP2 Comes Alive!

ianhamer — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:35:19 GMT

So. Yes. Okay. I'm a Peter Frampton fan. And, when I learned that our planned release of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) had, well, released today, it made me think of Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive!" album from 1976.

Why?

I don't know.

Seriously.

I did happen to go to Plattsburgh State University (of New York) where several of the tracks were recorded (well before my tenure there). Maybe that's it.

Moving on to the business at hand.

WS03SP2 includes a bunch of stuff related to networking, including the following features:

Scalable Networking Pack (TCP Chimney Offload, Receive-side Scaling and NetDMA)
IPsec Simple Policy Update (aka Improved IPsec filter management) for making Server and Domain Isolation deployments easier with WS03 and XP
Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) support for XP x64 and WS03
Enabling ‘Firewall Per Port’ Authentication which means "Firewall per port authentication secures traffic between the Extranet environment and internal assets that are protected via IPsec Domain Isolation."

And, there's a whole lot more that makes Server Pack 2 worth a good look and eventual deployment.

"So, how do I get it?"

It's already available off of Windows Update/Microsoft Update. At first (as pictured below) it was placed under the High-priority updates, but it is now a "Software, Optional".

Nevertheless, we'll be making this an automatic update in the a few months, much like we did with Windows Server 2003 SP1 and XP SP2.

You can also visit the official SP2 site on TechNet and find all different versions of the SP for WS03 and XP x64 Edition:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sp2.mspx

The above link includes links the downloads (regular and ISO flavors), overview docs, like the overview and what's new in SP2, and deployment guidance. There's also a great "Top 10 Reasons to Install" which happens to feature two of my favorites as #3 and #4:

Download SP2 and start evaluating. Especially since the WDS features will help you get Windows Vista deployed and, well, heck, it's got a lot of networking goodness to keep you happy while we finish up Windows Server "Longhorn".

Ahead Warp 1, Mr. Network

ianhamer — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:15:54 GMT

It's that time of year again when the Christmas music plays endlessly from every speaker within earshot, people start to heading home for the holidays, and a team at Siemens sets a record for (and I quote) "electrical processing of data through a fiber-optic cable."

According the article I read at CNET News.com, the cats at Siemens (in cooperation with a few German and one Dutch centers of learning) were able to process 107 gigabits per second.

Wow!

That's pretty darn fast.

I'm mean...really fast.

<cough> This technology's application in real-world networks is likely years away (that is of course if Siemens can deliver on the proto-type they mention they'll have in a few years time), but the good news is we've built a ton of new functionality into the networking functionality of Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn".

A few that will help make the use of such high-speed networks possible, include the hardware offload functionality (TCP Chimney Offload, et al) and the new auto-scaling algorithms.

Why are these things important to take advantage of high/warp speed networking? Well, it's about removing potential bottlenecks in the communication path. For example, having the ability to provide full protocol, stateful offload of say, TCP communications, will relieve the host's CPUs of the stress of processing packets instead of driving an application. At multiple gigabit speeds, just the simple NIC interrupts could cause the CPU to run hot and slow down overall system performance.

Next, having the ability to tune, dynamically, such TCP parameters as the Receive Windows size helps increase throughput on long, but fat network pipes.

Of course, we'll now need to pass the blocknecking buck off to the file system and those spinning arrays of disks. Hopefully higher speed (or solid state) storage will also launch around the same time to ensure those "roughly two full DVDs per second" potential throughput doesn't sit starved for data to send through these fast network pipes.

Scalable Networking News: Alacritech and NetXen Partner to Drive 10 GigE on TCP Chimney Offload

ianhamer — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 22:13:08 GMT

Industry momentum around our Scalable Networking initiative, with its innovative technologies like TCP Chimney Offload and Receive-side Scaling, continues as our partners deliver new solutions for high-speed networking within Windows environments.

This morning, two of our partners -- NetXen and Alacritech -- announced a joint effort to develop 10 GigE solutions built on top of our TCP Chimney Offload architecture in Windows Server 2003 (and will very likely extend that solution for Windows Server "Longhorn" when it is released). Here's a link to the announcement:

Alacritech and NetXen Join Forces to Deliver Solutions for Microsoft TCP Chimney Offload Technology

This announcement is quite timely as we inch closer to the release of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Among the numerous updates incorporated into this SP, the Scalable Networking Pack bits will be among them. Unlike the original Scalable Networking Pack released back in May 2006 at WinHEC, these features will be enabled by default when SP2 is installed. This will result in an even smoother deployment and near instant utilization of the the functionality within those new servers or high-speed networking "add-on" adapter you've recently purchased.

So, why get excited by all this high-speed, 10 GigE mumbo-jumbo? Well, data centers are beginning to make the transition to 10 Gigabit infrastructure, and we've (i.e. Microsoft) have been anticipating this for some time. For example, Fujitsu just introduced a new 10 GigE switch focused on high-performance computing and data center clustering. Other networking equipment makers are helping drive the adoption of 10 GigE in the data center, and we've laid the foundation within Windows Server (and Windows client with the release of Windows Vista) to help companies embrace high(er) speed networking, drive for fabric convergence (e.g. everything (e.g. data, voice, video, back-up, storage, interconnectivity, et al) over Ethernet), all without sacrificing performance.

It's also worth noting that our Scalable Networking initiative is not limited to just the "Chimney", but encompasses a number of efforts, spanning targeted task offload solutions, like IPsec task offload, to full protocol stateful offload, like TCP Chimney Offload. Keep watching this space for more insights on what's to come and how they can help you truly squeeze more "juice out of the orange" of your Windows Server gear. (NOTE: I tried so hard to get that "squeeze more juice" sound bite quoted during the launch last May, but without much success. Maybe's it's the sound bite).

Scalable Networking News: Intel Opens Up and Says "QuickData Technology"

ianhamer — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:50:00 GMT

There's some pretty neat news coming out Intel's big Developer Forum event this week in Taipei. Just a few months after releasing Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAT) as part of the Bensley (Xeon 5000 series) processor-based platform, they are now offering access to a core component -- the DMA engine -- to third party networking vendors.

Now with its newly minted name (Intel QuickData Technology), the DMA engine will be available to an array of network hardware and server vendors to built network acceleration solutions on top of. As you'll likely recall, Intel I/OAT is supported by Windows Server 2003 through the Scalable Networking Pack released in May 2006. Specially, the NetDMA component of the pack enables the integrated support.

So, what's cool about this news? Well, it means there will be an even larger set of options for customers who seek to implement these Scalable Networking technologies with Windows Server. We already have 15 Scalable Networking partners that are shipping hardware support for the Scalable Networking Pack, and I'd expect more will be coming with today's announcement (or, at the very least, additional support features from our existing partners).

Lastly, the Scalable Networking Pack bits will be included with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. So, as you begin evaluating or deployment gigabit Ethernet (GigE), multi-gig or 10GigE, don't forget to great server performance improvements made possible by the Scalable Networking Pack for WS03 and Windows Server "Longhorn" (and, yes, even Windows Vista!).

Better Together Networking Scenarios w/ Vista and Longhorn Server

ianhamer — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:27:18 GMT

Last week I delivered two webcasts for the Windows Vista TAP program members on a number of "better together" networking scenarios when you have Windows Vista on the client and Windows Server "Longhorn" on the back end.

Here's a link to one of the webcasts we recorded:
Better Together: Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" Networking Innovations

Even though 60 minutes isn't enough time to go into the gory technical details, I do cover off scenarios around security (including NAP), performance (like our new TCP Receive Window auto-tuning features) and scalability (from hardware offload, to QoS, to IPv6).

Packing the Scalable Networking Pack into Service Pack 2

ianhamer — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 08:37:00 GMT

There's a lot of great stuff to look forward to in the upcoming Service Pack 2 (SP2) release for Windows Server 2003. Among the long list of updates (see Ward's posting to the Windows Server Division's blog for the complete list) are two personal fav's: the Scalable Networking Pack and the IPsec Simple Policy Update.

Having the Scalable Networking Pack included in SP2 means it "officially" becomes part of the new base-line of Windows Server 2003. This, in turn, means more and more new servers will come with these bits to match the great list of IHVs and OEMs that are shipping supporting hardware. Speaking of Scalable Networking partners, we just added two more over the last few weeks: Acer and Neterion. You can get the full details at the Scalable Networking partner's page off of our TechNet site.

Any how, this is great news for the long term adoption of these critical features. Especially as multi-gigabit networking grows in prevalence and you start looking to adopt it more broadly in your datacenters.

But wait, there's more! The Simple Policy Update (for IPsec) is a preview of what we're doing to make IPsec a more scalable, deployable, manageable and "no brainer" decision in the next releases of Windows. Take a look at my AuthIP posting for more details there.

Gone Podcastin' - New Podcasts on 10G Networking with Longhorn and IPsec Interop

ianhamer — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:58:00 GMT

Checkout these two recent podcasts:

Server and Domain Isolation with Fernando Cima (MSFT Brazil)
This podcast is from Port 25 which is run by the gang over in Microsoft's Open Software Labs. Fernando is a member of the Security Center of Excellence and one of the developers of a new Server and Domain Isolation services offering that will be available soon from Microsoft Services (MCS).

It features info on how Fernando and team developed new guidance around IPsec interop between Windows and non-Windows platforms, like Solaris, Mac OSX and Linux.

If you happen to be attending the Worldwide Partner Conference in Boston this week, Fernando and I are delivering a session about this new Service Kit on Thursday:

SEC006 Creating New Services Opportunities with Server and Domain Isolation

Podcasts: Microsoft and Sun groom their OSes for 10 Gig
The second podcast comes by way of an interview I did with Oliver Rist and Brian Chee of InfoWorld on the subject of getting ready for 10 Gig networking and how we are advancing Windows Server to do so. I talk about a lot of the enhancements coming in Windows Server "Longhorn" platform networking as well as the recently released Scalable Networking Pack for Windows Server 2003.

Well, it's time to finish up for the day and getting ready for my flight out to Boston for the Partner Conference.