Intel 100GB Quickassist Adapter 8970 PCIe 3.0 X16 IQA89701G3P5 Accelerator Card.

Purpose-Built for Security and Compression

Intel's QuickAssist Technology delivers purpose-built hardware acceleration for symmetric encryption/decryption, hashing, public key encryption, and data compression. The IQA89701G3P5 supports a wide range of protocols, including:

• IPSec
• SSL/TLS
• DTLS
• MACsec
• LZS and Deflate Compression

Hardware Architecture and Performance

The Intel IQA89701G3P5 integrates the Intel® QuickAssist 8970 chipset and leverages the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface for high-bandwidth connectivity. With a massive 100GB onboard memory buffer, this accelerator card is designed to handle heavy concurrent cryptographic and compression operations.

Encryption and Hashing Acceleration

The adapter supports a wide range of encryption algorithms including AES-CBC, AES-GCM, DES, 3DES, RSA, and ECC. It also accelerates hashing mechanisms like SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512. These cryptographic operations are essential for maintaining secure communication, especially in VPNs, firewall appliances, and secure cloud infrastructure.

Compression Acceleration

Data compression is crucial for reducing bandwidth consumption and improving storage efficiency. The QuickAssist 8970 supports both LZS and Deflate algorithms, providing up to 30 Gbps of compression throughput in real-world workloads. This makes the adapter ideal for WAN optimization, deduplication systems, and storage-tiering solutions.

Application and Use Case Scenarios

Network Security Appliances

Firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), and Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices benefit tremendously from the Intel IQA89701G3P5. The adapter offloads cryptographic functions, allowing security devices to scale without compromising latency or throughput.

Cloud and Data Center Infrastructure

In virtualized and containerized environments, CPU cycles are at a premium. The QuickAssist Adapter allows cloud providers to offer secure workloads without sacrificing performance by freeing host resources for application-level operations.

Edge Computing and IoT Security

Edge devices can enhance their security frameworks using this adapter, especially when handling sensitive transactions at the edge. The card helps enforce encryption and data integrity without affecting device responsiveness.

Storage and Backup Optimization

Systems performing frequent backup, archival, or deduplication processes can benefit from the card’s compression acceleration, leading to faster backup cycles and reduced storage consumption.

Reliability, Compatibility, and Deployment

Operating System Support

The Intel IQA89701G3P5 is supported on a wide variety of enterprise-grade operating systems, including:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• CentOS
• Ubuntu LTS versions
• FreeBSD
• VMware ESXi (with specific drivers)

Software and API Support

Intel provides a full QuickAssist Software Development Kit (QAT SDK), including APIs and libraries that allow seamless integration with OpenSSL, IPsec stacks, and storage solutions. There is also support for DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit), enabling faster packet processing for network-centric applications.

Virtualization and Containerization

Virtual functions (VFs) and Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) support allows this card to operate effectively in multi-tenant cloud environments. It enables resource partitioning and allocation across containers or virtual machines, enhancing security and performance isolation.

Cooling and Power Requirements

The adapter uses a passive heat sink and relies on the server chassis airflow for thermal management. With a TDP of approximately 20W–35W, it is power-efficient for deployment in high-density environments.

Comparison with Other Hardware Accelerators

Intel QuickAssist 8970 vs 8960

While the 8960 is also a capable QuickAssist adapter, the 8970 model offers higher throughput, additional memory, and improved thermal characteristics. The 8970 is therefore better suited for high-demand, real-time cryptographic and compression applications.

Intel vs AMD vs NVIDIA Solutions

Compared to GPU-based solutions from NVIDIA or general-purpose accelerators from AMD, Intel’s QuickAssist is focused specifically on crypto and compression tasks. This specialization allows for lower latency, deterministic performance, and tighter integration with Intel platforms.

Compatibility with Intel Xeon Scalable Platforms

The IQA89701G3P5 integrates flawlessly with Intel Xeon Scalable systems, especially with CPUs that do not already include built-in QAT. This allows administrators to scale performance independently of the CPU roadmap.

Security and Compliance Benefits

Data Protection and Regulatory Compliance

Organizations can leverage this card to maintain compliance with data protection frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. By enabling stronger and faster encryption across endpoints and storage arrays, the card strengthens overall data protection posture.

End-to-End Data Encryption

The card’s cryptographic engine ensures that data is encrypted from the moment it is transmitted or received. Combined with proper key management, it allows organizations to implement end-to-end encryption for data in transit and at rest.

Zero Trust Architecture Enablement

With the Zero Trust model gaining popularity in enterprise environments, the IQA89701G3P5 helps enforce encryption at multiple points, making it a suitable component in modern micro-segmentation and Zero Trust deployments.

Scalability and Deployment Architecture

Flexible Deployment Options

The low-profile PCIe form factor allows this adapter to be installed in both standard servers and blade chassis. With support for hot-pluggable PCIe slots, administrators can quickly scale up compute and security capacity as needed.

Horizontal Scaling in Multi-Node Clusters

Enterprises running Kubernetes, OpenStack, or VMware clusters can deploy multiple IQA89701G3P5 cards across nodes to achieve load-balanced and resilient acceleration infrastructure. This is especially valuable in NFV and cloud-native workloads.

Redundancy and Failover Support

Multiple QuickAssist adapters can be configured in active-active or active-passive redundancy mode. This ensures consistent throughput and high availability even in the event of hardware failure.

Search-Friendly Keywords and Phrases

• Intel QuickAssist Adapter 8970
• PCIe 3.0 x16 Accelerator Card
• 100GB Cryptographic Accelerator
• Intel IQA89701G3P5 Specs
• High-Speed Compression Card for Data Centers
• Intel Hardware Acceleration for Security
• QAT Adapter for TLS, SSL, and IPsec
• Enterprise Compression Offload Card
• Intel QAT SDK Compatible Accelerator
• Cloud Crypto Offload PCIe Card

Target Audience and Industry Use

This category is ideal for IT professionals, security architects, network administrators, cloud infrastructure engineers, and system integrators looking to optimize cryptographic operations and accelerate compression-heavy workloads.

Industries Benefiting from the Intel IQA89701G3P5

• Telecommunications and 5G Core Networks
• Enterprise IT and Virtualization Platforms
• Government and Defense Networks
• Financial Services and FinTech Infrastructure
• Healthcare IT and Compliance-Centric Environments