Comet WAN Acceleration Technologies

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Comet TCP evaluator support

This page is for the Comet TCP evaluators. Detail is disclosed only to evaluators with NDA.

To non-evaluators:

If you are interested to evaluate our prototype, please let us know at "c_o_m_e_t_@_c_o_m_e_t_-_c_a_n_._j_p"/_ should be removed.

To evaluators:

• Please request to us to get the latest firmware and the evaluation results.
• The package contains a firmware, a control program and a set of documentations.
• The firmware and the control program should be used as a suit. One version of suit does not support other versions.
• Please trash older packages and always use the latest.

THE NEWEST COMET IS THE BEST!!

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About the Comet TCP

• Comet TCP is a thin network appliance that supports "Transparent TCP Acceleration"
• No "Application Acceleration," but any TCP sessions along long RTT networks could be boosted
• Remote Disk/File backup software will get a great benefit from Comet TCP
  • Bakbone Software NetVault , ( latest performance result )
  • Symantec (Veritas) Backup Exec , ( latest performance result )
• Up to 32 TCP sessions are boosted at a time
• Each TCP session is automatically protected by IPsec (AES & HMAC-MD5)
• Single TCP session could be boosted up to 300Mbps in 200ms RTT
• Functions are integrated into a PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card) / AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) standard form factor
• AMC version has additional features:
  • a "Bypass in power-down" feature for the Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
  • a 100Base-TX infterface for management




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Comet TCP updates

• Windows Vista SMB2 Performance (June 22, 2007)

We have confirmed the Comet TCP boosts the performance of Windows Vista SMB2 file sharing significantly. The CIFS/SMB1 problem will be removed for Windows Vista and Comet TCP users.



• New package TNP-comet-tcp-2007-0425.tgz (Apr. 25, 2007)

This package includes the firmware 07-mg-06, the latest ccp-3.21 and the update-firm tool. Firmware 07-mg-06 fixes a bug added in the 07-mg-04 related to a control for TCP RST state management.

• New package TNP-comet-tcp-2007-0411.tgz (Apr. 11, 2007)

This package updates the tool software set which obsoletes all of previous versions. The firmware update tool can update all previous versions with some friendly messages. Please request to the support for the package.

• Comet TCP Benchmark summary, Feb. 16, 2007 (pdf 1.1MB)

• Firmware 07-mg-04 (Mar. 02, 2007)

We have released the Firmware 07-mg-04 with a new feature:

• Optimized to Windows TCP flow control better (sigh...)

• Benchmarking Comet statistics on a packet-drop network (Feb. 7, 2007)

We have confirmed the Comet TCP keeps 230Mbps Backup Exec performance on 100ms RTT, 1% packet drop rate emulated network.

• NetVault performance
• Backup Exec performance

• Comet TCP Benchmark summary, Jan. 31, 2007 (pdf 1MB)

• Firmware 07-mg-03 (Jan. 25, 2007)

We have released the Firmware 07-mg-03 with features:

• Maximum triple numbers of TCP session buffers than previous versions
• Enhanced the fairness of QoS control between boosted TCP sessions
• Some algorithm enhancement in TCP control sequence

This version extended the Backup Exec performance to 120Mbps in 500ms RTT.

• NetVault performance
• Backup Exec performance

• Firmware 07-mg-02-bufx2 (Jan. 23, 2007)

We have changed the firmware to increase the number of buffers to keep tcp packets. And checked the effect of the change using some commercial "Remote Backup Applications." Here is a set of the latest Remote Backup Application performances. Comet TCP realizes 100-150Mbps remote backup performance even in 200ms RTT with *NO* tuning.

• NetVault performance
• Backup Exec performance

• Firmware 07-mg-02 (Jan. 18, 2007)

In this version, we have made some optimization for Windows Server to enhance the performance and stability of single TCP session. This version supports max. 300Mbps Iperf tcp between RedHat Linux 9.

Iperf tcp between RedHat Linux 9 on some IA server (Mbps)

RTT(ms)	1st eval	2nd eval	3rd eval
0	303	315	316
4	309	314	307
8	300	299	305
12	292	292	300
16	292	300	299
20	301	282	301
40	288	300	285
60	277	294	281
80	276	296	291
100	285	279	274

• Firmware 07-mg-01 (Jan. 11, 2007)

This version supports max. 290Mbps Iperf tcp between RedHat Linux 9.

• Comet TCP presentation, June 2006, Prototype Performance version (pdf 380KB)




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Glossaries

• AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card)

The Advanced Mezzanine Card is another industrial standard "daughter card" after the PMC. All of the Comet TCP functions are implemented on one AMC board.

• The Wikipedia definition of AMC

• Iperf

The "Iperf" is one of widely used performance measurement tools for the Internet.

• Iperf development and distribution

• IPsec (IP security)

IPsec is one of the Internet Protocol standard set which supports a security and integrity of the IP packet. Using the IPsec, all IP packets are encrypted and authenticated in the Internet and be much safer. The Comet TCP adopts IPsec ESP (Encapsulated Security Payload) format to carry TCP packets and apply AES and HMAC-MD5.

• The Wikipedia definition of IPsec

• PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card)

The PCI Mezzanine Card is an industrial standard "daughter card" in 74 mm x 149 mm board size. All of the Comet TCP functions are implemented on one PMC board.

• The Wikipedia definition of PMC

• RTT (Round Trip Time/Round Trip delay Time)

A distance of the Internet is measured by a metric RTT (Round Trip Time). RTT means a round trip time of an Internet packet travels from a source host to a destination host and returns back to the source host. Usually, RTT is presented in ms (mili-second) unit.

• The Wikipedia definition of RTT



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