Overview

Chelsio’s Virtual Uplink (Virtual Multi-Port) Software lets a high-speed Chelsio adapter present multiple virtual 1Gb (or other speed) uplinks to the host or hypervisor while using a single physical 10/25/40/100Gb link. The solution preserves existing network topology and guest/VM expectations, consolidating switch ports and cabling while offloading I/O processing to the adapter to reduce host CPU utilization and increase I/O throughput and scalability. It is designed to work with Chelsio Unified Wire adapters and integrates with OS/hypervisor drivers and tooling.

Features and Capabilities

• Virtualization & Uplink Consolidation: Presents multiple virtual NICs per physical port so legacy 1Gb setups can be consolidated onto 10/25/40/100Gb links without reconfiguring guests or VMs.
• Host Offload & Performance: Offloads TCP/IP, storage, and other protocol processing to the adapter silicon to lower host CPU usage and boost IOPS and throughput.
• Hypervisor & OS Integration: Works with supported Linux and VMware ESXi drivers and tools so virtual uplinks appear natively to the hypervisor/OS.
• Flexible Port Mapping: Allows administrators to configure how virtual links map to physical ports, enabling traffic separation (tenant, management, storage, etc.) while using fewer physical switch ports.
• Compatibility with Unified Wire Stack: Integrates into Chelsio’s Unified Wire ecosystem (TOE, iSCSI, FCoE, RDMA/NVMeoF) so virtual uplinks can carry LAN and SAN traffic efficiently.
• Scalability: Designed for large numbers of offloaded connections (varies by adapter model), enabling dense virtualization and high concurrent connection counts.
• Deployment Modes & Management: Delivered as part of driver/software packages for the adapters (Linux/ESXi installers and user guides), with CLI/driver utilities for configuration and monitoring.
• Use Cases: Ideal for virtualized data centers, consolidated switch/cabling environments, storage servers (iSCSI/NVMe/TCP), and environments that need to preserve legacy 1Gb VM NIC expectations while upgrading infrastructure.