What's new and what's hot in the Crossbow beta release
In sync with Nevada build 81, which includes the new installer, xVM, etc.
Many virtualization features, including:
Automatic MAC address generation for VNICs.
Better sharing of the primary interface with VNICs.
The last published version required a second NIC in order
to keep the primary interface while creating VNICs. This
beta release overcomes that limitation.
Ethernet Stubs.
Virtualizing a physical NIC isn't the only way to create
a VNIC any more. This feature takes the virtualization further.
It enables fully virtual networks by creating VNICs on top of
logical entities called ethernet stubs, instead of physical NICs.
More expressive rules for flows that allow setting resource control policies
per local and remote IPv4 and IPv6 address, per subnets and services.
More stable and robust code
More accurate bandwidth limits enforcement.
CPU binding for data-links (NICs and VNICs) and for flows.
Performance enhancement.
Much of the core scheduling code that was re-engineered for this release
was geared towards optimizations particularly targeting the following:
IP forwarding performance
Lower overall CPU utilization
More parallel processing to leverage SMP (Symetric Multiprocessors),
CMT (Chip Multi-Threading, e.g. Niagara) architectures, and to
better exploit advanced virtualization features of NICs such as
multiple receive and transmit rings.
Two more 10 Gbps drivers (xge and nxge) were converted to the Crossbow
framework.