Emulex and BLADE Network Technologies Deliver Essential Networking Components for IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric
BLADE Network Technologies and Emulex Deliver Essential Networking Components for IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric
Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter and BLADE’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Provide End-to-End Converged Networking in Highly Virtualized Blade Server Environments
Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX – News) and BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data center networking, announced that the two companies are delivering the essential networking components for IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric. BLADE’s BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module combined with Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter provide an end-to-end converged networking solution for IBM BladeCenter H and HS22 blade servers.
Virtual Fabric for IBM BladeCenter provides flexible Ethernet connectivity, virtual port switching and support for future converged networking with iSCSI or FCoE. Unlike the physical port switching employed by conventional switch fabrics, the Emulex-BLADE solution provides a virtual fabric for IBM BladeCenter supporting 1Gb/s or 10Gb/s that can be configured into up to eight virtual ports with bandwidth allocation in 100Mb/s increments.
BLADE’s switch-resident and hypervisor-agnostic SmartConnect with VMready software is the industry’s first shipping product to enable network policies to move along with Virtual Machines to maintain application performance, availability and security.
The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter provides the fastest and most flexible blade server Ethernet connections in the industry, offering two physical 10Gb/s Ethernet ports that can be configured into up to eight virtual ports with bandwidth allocations in 100Mb/s increments. Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters are field upgradable to iSCSI or next-generation Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). BLADE’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches support iSCSI and can be upgraded with new firmware to support FCoE, allowing a converged networking infrastructure to support diverse application requirements within the data center.
“One of the challenges customers face today is that they have too many devices in their data centers that need to be managed,” said Alex Yost, vice president, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “Virtual Fabric for IBM BladeCenter, developed in partnership with Emulex and BLADE Network Technologies, allows customers to significantly reduce the number of adapters, switches and cabling by offering up to eight virtual adapters with the flexibility to work at any bandwidth from 100Mb to 10Gb.”
“Emulex and BLADE Network Technologies are working with IBM to bring industry-leading 10Gb/s Ethernet and virtual I/O solutions to the market that help IT managers reduce costs and scale their operations through the performance and consolidation benefits of network convergence,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Business Development, Emulex. “Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters for IBM BladeCenter are based on our OneConnect™ Universal Converged Network Adapter architecture and work seamlessly with BLADE’s convergence-ready switches to provide an ideal solution for IBM BladeCenter customers seeking to lower capital expenditures, maximize blade consolidation and deploy highly virtualized environments.”
“BLADE’s FCoE-ready virtual fabric switch automatically recognizes Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter and has the ability to connect massive virtualization environments that span thousands of servers, helping simplify management and improve performance for today’s agile workloads,” said Charles Ferland, vice president of EMEA, BLADE Network Technologies. “Working with Emulex and IBM to deliver this combined solution confirms that BLADE switches are today’s best choice for next-generation data center networks.”
Availability
BLADE’s BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter (Part number 46C7191) and Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter (Part number 49Y4235) will be available in November from IBM.
View the product demonstration video at: http://www.youtube.com/EmulexVideo.
For more information on Emulex connectivity solutions for IBM, visit: http://www.emulex-ibm.com.
For more information on BLADE networking solutions for IBM BladeCenter, visit: http://www.bladenetwork.net/ibm.
About Emulex
Emulex is the leader in converged networking solutions for the data center. Our Connectivity Continuum architecture provides intelligent networking services that transition today’s infrastructure into tomorrow’s unified network ecosystem. Emulex provides a single framework that intelligently connects every server, network and storage device within the data center. Through strategic collaboration and integrated partner solutions, Emulex provides its customers with industry leading business value, operational flexibility and strategic advantage. Emulex is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:ELX – News) and has corporate headquarters in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at: http://www.emulex.com.
About BLADE Network Technologies
BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) is the leading provider of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet cloud-ready networking solutions for dynamic, enterprise data centers worldwide. In addition to its innovative OEM blade switches, and SmartConnect with VMready virtualization and BLADEHarmony Manager software, BLADE’s “Virtual, Cooler, Easier” RackSwitch family enables “Rackonomics” – an efficient approach for scaling out data center networks to drive down total cost of ownership. BLADE’s customers include more than 300 of the Fortune 500 across 26 industry segments, representing nearly 7 million switch ports connecting over 2 million servers and storage systems in data centers around the globe. Visit: www.bladenetwork.net. Twitter: @BLADENetwork.
