The Sun Dual-Port 4x IB Host Channel Adapter PCI-E with an x8 PCI Express interface enables an aggregate of 20 Gbit/sec. of full duplex bandwidth. PCI-Express offers two to four times peak bandwidth improvement over PCI-X slots coupled with lower latencies. Bandwidth and latency are critical attributes for clustered-database, high-performance computing (HPC), and embedded and storage applications.Sun customers can scale horizontally in clustered configurations without losing performance. ISV applications - such as Oracle 10g real application cluster (RAC) - that utilize protocols running on InfiniBand clusters can gain from significant performance improvements in latency, throughput, and CPU utilization. Customers will see value in terms of price/performance and lowered total cost of ownership (TCO).The Sun Dual-Port 4x IB Host Channel Adapter PCI-E conforms to the InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) 1.1 specification to enable open standards-based implementation and multivendor interoperability. This high degree of interoperability protects customer investment while providing smoother migration to new systems and a reduced TCO. The component also supports Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), which enables transmission of data from the memory of one processor directly into the memory of another processor - without involving either system's operating system. The component's IPoIB architecture further enables it to run Internet protocols over InfiniBand links. The Sun Dual-Port 4x IB Host Channel Adapter PCI-E offers impressive I/O bandwidth, a high level of functionality, and best-in-class InfiniBand fabric connectivity for server-clustered applications.