Nemo Project - Chairman's Award for Innovation Winner
Congratulations to the Nemo Project Team (including those who are no longer at Sun)! It was truly a team effort, required alot of hard work, and in the end paid off. I am glad I could be a part of a team who drives innovation that has a significant impact on our partners, customers and Sun's bottom line.
2006 Chairman Award Recipients
Eric Cheng
Nicolas Droux
Carol Gayo
Darrin Johnson
Sunay Tripathi
Innovation Title
Nemo: High-Performance, Feature-Rich, and Easy-to-Use Device Network Driver Framework
Innovation Description
Solaris 10 delivered a new framework for the network stack (project FireEngine) that made Solaris competitive with Linux and won the hearts and minds of our customers and developers. However, the FireEngine stack could not realize its full potential with the existing, and dated, DLPI-based device driver framework nor could it drive the next generation of network technologies (e.g. 10 Gigabit Ethernet, TCP-IP Offload, wireless, etc.). A radical new approach was needed. Enter Nemo.
The Nemo architecture (external name GLDv3) provides the traditional DLPI interface to the network layer services, while providing a high-performance, direct-function, call-based interface. It virtualizes the Data Link layer of the network stack. There is no longer a one-to-one correspondence between network interfaces and devices.
This leading-edge technology not only increased SMI's intellectual property (filing 12 patents), it lays the groundwork for innovative growth in the network stack virtualization and resource control areas.
Nemo improves SMI's bottom line because it:
- Dramatically increases ISV/IHV adoption of Solaris x86/x64, including Nemo-based drivers for Intel, Broadcom, Neterion (10Gig), Chelsio (10 Gig/TOE), Level5 Networks, Nvidia, etc.
- Demonstrates industry-leading through-put networking.
- Provides tangible out-of-the-box performance improvements critical to key markets (Financial, Telco, HPC, etc.) without any changes required by ISVs or customers.
- Significantly reduces the time needed to write, QA, and support device drivers.
- Provides marketing buzz around Solaris due to added performance and functionality.
In summary, John Fowler, EVP of NSG, best summarizes the value of Nemo: "Nemo kicks ***! Delivering performance, features, and making it easier for our partners to support us is a recipe for success."
