The Cisco Nexus NXN-HPT, High Resolution Timestamp Capture NIC is a 10Gbps, 0.25ns resolution, network capture card. Supports full line-rate capture with High Resolution Timestamps (HPTs). High-speed capture can be performed to both standard PCAPs (with nanosecond resolution) and enhanced PCAPs (with picosecond resolution) using our free open-source Exact Capture software. Timestamps are also delivered directly through intuitive C- and Python-based APIs. Measurements using the adapter have a standard deviation of just 0.2ns. Programmable flow steering and load balancing delivers packets to the right cores. For demanding capture applications, load balancing automatically distributes flows across a collection of receive queues to make the most of CPU parallelism. For those who need more control, flow steering directs traffic to specified threads or cores based on programmable rules. Each Cisco Nexus HPT port supports up to 128 programmable flow steering rules that direct traffic to 32 user-accessible buffers. Both Pulse-Per-Second (PPS) synchronization and generation functions are supported. The Cisco Nexus HPT Pulse-Per-Second (PPS) input can be used to synchronize the HPT clock with a PPS source such as a Grand Master and/or GPS receiver to within 1ns, allowing users to meaningfully compare captured timestamps across multiple servers and/or geographic locations. The Cisco Nexus HPT can also generate PPS output to master other devices in a rack, and hardware assists Precision Time Protocol (PTP IEEE1588) packets for 2ns time synchronization across machines. The Cisco Nexus HPT is also an ultra low latency network interface card. Designed from the ground up to minimize latency, the Cisco Nexus HPT delivers record-breaking performance numbers. On an Intel Ivy Bridge test system, median latency from application to network to application is 780 nanoseconds for small packets. Half round trip TCP latencies are as low as 930 nanoseconds for small payloads. The Cisco Nexus HPT includes a transparent TCP/UDP acceleration and direct, low-level access library, and a standard Linux driver. The Nexus HPT transparent socket acceleration library allows applications to benefit from the low latency of kernel bypass, in most cases without modifications to the applications. For the most latency sensitive applications, a library called libexanic allows direct low-level access to the Nexus NIC hardware and includes simple functions for sending and receiving Ethernet frames.
⚠️ WARNING (California Proposition 65): This product may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. For more information, please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
