A converged network adapter (CNA), also called a converged network interface controller (C-NIC), is a computer input/output device that combines the functionality of a host bus adapter (HBA) with a

network interface controller A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and physical network interface) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Early network interface ...

(NIC). In other words, it " converges" access to, respectively, a

storage area network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block device, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access Computer data storage, data storage devices, such as disk ...

and a general-purpose

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

Support

Some products were marketed around 2005 with the term C-NIC which combined

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

storage functionality with

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...

. Later products used the marketing term converged network adapter (CNA), combining

Fibre Channel over Ethernet Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...

with

10 Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet (abbreviated 10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10 gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlik ...

, for example.

Brocade

Brocade Communications Systems offers two types of CNAs, with

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as Peripher ...

generation 2.0 interfaces. The only difference between the two models are the number of interfaces on the cards: one or two. The two port model will allow connection to two different switches to create a redundant configuration without having to use two PCI slots.

Broadcom

In 2009

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data cen ...

entered the CNA market. Broadcom offers their CNAs under their own brand name but also sell the

application-specific integrated circuit An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficienc ...

s and other related components to others. Their intended customers are the larger builders of server systems such as

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

and HP. These vendors can then include the ten Gigabit CNA with their servers: as embedded interface on the motherboard (LOM or LAN on motherboard), via a mezzanine card in

blade server A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, wh ...

s or as PCI extension-card.

Emulex

Emulex Emulex Corporation was an American computer hardware company active from 1978 to 2015. The company was a provider of computer network connectivity, monitoring and management hardware and software. The company's I/O connectivity offerings, inclu ...

offers CNAs under the Emulex brand name as the OneConnect ten Gigabit series of dual port optical and copper adapters. They also OEM their adapters for Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM and NetApp.

QLogic

QLogic offers CNAs via their QLogic 8200 & 8300 series Converged Network Adapters. They offer single and dual port PCI cards with copper or optical fibre interfaces. QLogic CNAs are available under the QLogic brandname and as OEM cards. The QME CNA and drivers were supported by Citrix,

NetApp NetApp, Inc. is an American data infrastructure company that provides unified data storage, integrated data services, and cloud operations (CloudOps) solutions to enterprise customers. The company is based in San Jose, California. It has ranked ...

, EMC and

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Hewlett-Packard

HP claims that their BL460c G7 was the first blade server that offers

FCoE Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...

via a ''LOM'' (LAN on motherboard) instead of using a PCI slot or mezzanine card.

Dell

uses the QLogic 8100 series in their PowerEdge servers. For the M-series, blade-servers for the M1000e use the custom made dual-port mezzanine card QME8142. For the normal tower and rack servers Dell offers an OEM version of the standard QME8152.

Cisco

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

offered Fibre Channel over Ethernet in their Unified Computing System product line via ''Virtual Interface Cards'' (VICs). These cards make it possible to create multiple virtual HBAs or NICs within each physical VIC.

Intel

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

demonstrates how the term ''Converged Network Adapter'' is really a marketing term, as they sell the X710-DA2/DA4 adapter

that don't actually support

References

{{Reflist Fibre Channel Networking hardware Ethernet Computer storage buses