Abbreviated as TSO,
TCP segmentation offload is
used to reduce the
CPU overhead of
TCP/IP on fast networks. TSO breaks down large groups of
data sent over a
network into smaller
segments that pass through all the network elements
between the source and destination. This type of offload relies on the
network interface controller (NIC)
to segment the data and then add the TCP, IP and data link layer protocol
headers to each segment. The NIC must support TSO. TSO is also called large
segment offload (LSO).
See "Understanding
The Data Link Layer" in Webopedia's
Did You Know
section.
