Alacritech this week started shipping a family of server adapters that offload TCP processing on machines running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Storage Server 2003.

Alacritech calls its adapters Scalable Network Accelerators (SNA), not to be confused with IBM's SNA, or System Network Architecture. (Am I the only one who thought of that when I first saw the acronym? I'm probably dating myself with that reference.)

The adapters' TCP offload technology processes network communications so that the server's main processor doesn't have to. Alacritech's technology has been "natively integrated" with Microsoft’s TCP Chimney Offload architecture, part of its Scalable Networking Pack for Windows Server 2003.

This deep integration is being touted as a strong selling point, but a few years ago Alacritech and Microsoft weren't so buddy-buddy. Alacritech sued Microsoft for violating its patents, and then the companies settled in 2005 with a licensing deal that apparently continues to bear fruit.

The adapters can accelerate both iSCSI and network traffic. The company offers a version tailored specifically for iSCSI as well. Alacritech's latest drivers support Jumbo Frames - which are Ethernet frames beyond the size specified in the standards. The advantage is that large network transfers are done more efficiently.

Alacritech says it expects the adapters to be used in places where data transport across a network occurs frequently; applications include file serving, NAS, NFS, CIFS, Web or HTTP traffic, video post production and backup. On a related note, Alacritech next month will be making available a reference design to its OEM partners for storage servers that includes its SNA adapters.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.