Abstract

Sun Microsystems, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate its GigaSwift UTP Adapter, a PCI adapter using an RJ-45 interface, against a SysKonnect SK-9821 Gigabit Ethernet UTP adapter and a 3Com Corp. ACEnic adapter, each installed on a Sun Microsystems Enterprise 6500 server, outfitted with twelve 400-MHz ultraSPARC CPUs running either Sun Solaris 7 or Solaris 8 operating systems.

Sun Microsystems positioned its GigaSwift UTP Adapter as a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet PCI adapter for Sun server environments, and Tolly’s evaluation compared it directly with the SysKonnect SK-9821 and 3Com ACEnic adapters in a Sun Enterprise 6500 server running both Solaris 7 and Solaris 8. The testing focused on TCP/IP file-transfer throughput in both bidirectional and download scenarios using maximum 1,518-byte packets, with multiple Gigabit Ethernet clients driving the server adapters to sustained high load.  

In Solaris 8, the Sun GigaSwift adapter delivered the strongest results in both traffic patterns. Bidirectional throughput reached 815Mbit/s, compared with 557Mbit/s for the SysKonnect adapter and 596Mbit/s for the 3Com ACEnic. In download testing, the GigaSwift reached 940Mbit/s, versus 679Mbit/s for SysKonnect and 695Mbit/s for 3Com. Tolly characterized this as 46% higher bidirectional throughput than SysKonnect, 37% higher than 3Com, and 38% higher download throughput than SysKonnect.  

The same pattern held under Solaris 7. In bidirectional testing, the Sun GigaSwift delivered 848Mbit/s, while SysKonnect reached 594Mbit/s and 3Com reached 591Mbit/s. In download testing, the Sun adapter achieved 925Mbit/s, compared with 710Mbit/s for SysKonnect and 689Mbit/s for 3Com. These results showed the Sun adapter outperforming both rivals across both operating systems, while also demonstrating that strong Gigabit Ethernet performance remained achievable even on Sun’s earlier Solaris 7 platform.  

The report notes that the test server used a 64-bit, 66MHz PCI slot and a 12-CPU Sun Enterprise 6500 with 4GB of RAM, factors that helped the adapters approach wire-speed performance. Tolly also points to adapter design, device drivers, operating system version, and traffic direction as major contributors to throughput differences. Overall, the evaluation presents the Sun GigaSwift UTP Adapter as the top-performing option of the three for Sun Solaris server deployments requiring high-throughput Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.  

Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle in 2010 and ceased to exist as an independent company. Oracle kept and continued parts of Sun’s technology portfolio, including Java, Solaris, SPARC servers, MySQL, and storage systems, while the Sun brand itself was gradually phased out.