Do programmable Ethernet devices (think onboard CPU) really exist?

I've heard from various people that programmable Ethernet cards exist and are easily available. However I have yet to be able to track down one of these mythical devices so I'm wondering if they're just that - a myth.

Such a programmable card has a gigabi开发者_Python百科t Ethernet interface, has a programmable CPU and connects to the host system via PCI Express. The problem area these cards address are low latency network applications where the card itself does the work and "reports back" to the operating system. Basically the card acts as a co-processor and handles all the low latency requirements on the card, thus avoiding the issues of writing low latency code in user-land - think 0.4ms - 0.5ms response times.

So my question is, do these cards really exist and if so, where can I get my hands on one?

AdvancedIO has dual and quad programmable 10 gbe PCI Express cards. These cards are geared toward ultra-low latency and line rate applications (high frequency trading, military and telecom). They use FPGAs instead of CPUs because FPGAs have lower latencies and can handle large amount of data in real time.

If you want more information on these cards, you can go to: http://www.advancedio.com/products/form-factor/pci-express/

If you want more information about applications, you can go to: http://www.advancedio.com/markets/financial/ or browse the different Markets on the web site.

These cards come with a development framework to facilitate the development of applications.

Good luck

RNet technologies has a user-programmable NIC, that is software programmable, rather than Advanced I/O cards that are FPGA based (HW programmable).

Bigfoot Networks makes a series of products (their Killer line) that are "smart" NICs: e.g. the Killer 2100.

It's not clear at a glance whether their current products are user-programmable. However, a review of a legacy product of theirs suggests that you were able to load specialized "apps" onto the cards, at least.