Byte and Switch: Alacritech Turns to Linux

“Alacritech on Monday announced partnerships with three small
software vendors–FalconStor Software Inc., Mountain View Data
Inc., and OptiFacio Software Services Inc.–each of which are
planning to use Alacritech’s network acceleration cards in
Linux-based NAS offerings.

“‘The NAS vendors are absolutely figuring out they need TOEs
[TCP Offload Engines] today,’ says Joe Gervais, director of product
marketing at Alacritech. ‘We expect that to continue for some years
ahead.’

“Alacritech’s new Linux drivers provide acceleration, link
aggregation, and failover for NAS environments. The company
developed the software around the 2.4 Linux kernel and it supports
Red Hat Inc. Linux versions 7.2 and 7.3. The Alacritech code
doesn’t replace the TCP/IP stack in Linux; rather, it intercepts
certain network calls in order to speed them up. ‘This is hard work
integrating this into the operating system, because these operating
systems don’t have hooks for TOEs,’ Gervais says…”

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