QLogic Enhances Lenovo Servers

QLogic Corporation is providing enterprise FC and converged network connectivity for Lenovo ThinkServer systems.

QLogic performance data center interconnect technologies are an integral enabler for Lenovo ThinkServer systems to deliver enterprise server and storage performance. The expanded relationship between Lenovo and QLogic allows to address the demand for performance storage networking solutions for enterprise data centers and government organizations throughout China and around the globe.

“Lenovo servers deliver the reliability, scalability, and ease-of-management that all enterprises demand,” said Darrel Ward, VP, enterprise product group, Lenovo. “We selected QLogic CNAs and FC adapters because they provide all these characteristics. Our enterprise customers will experience improved ThinkServer application performance with the addition of QLogic to our expanding partnership portfolio.”

QLogic 8200 Series 10GbE CNAs and 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapters are now shipping as an option with Lenovo servers. Armed with Xeon E5 processors, these servers are designed for integration into existing IT infrastructures that handle demanding virtualization, cloud and compute-intensive workloads.

FC adapters and 10GbE CNAs are designed to balance the compute density of Lenovo servers with enterprise I/O performance and reliability. By providing hardware offload, adapters remove the protocol processing burden from the CPU to provide performance benefits. Hardware offload conserves CPU cycles for applications and services and makes it possible to scale to greater VM densities.

“Our partnership with Lenovo allows QLogic to expand its growing presence in China and further develop our global brand,” said Vikram Karvat, VP marketing, QLogic. “QLogic’s 8200 Series CNAs and 2500 Series FC adapters are designed for virtualized data centers driven by powerful multi-processor, multi-core servers. Optimized to handle large numbers of VMs, the versatile QLogic 8200 Series enables consolidation of data and storage networking onto a single wire, resulting in fewer cables; fewer switches; reduced power and cooling requirements; and reduced TCO in the data center.”

8200 Series CNAs-10GbE performance with flexibility
By delivering 10GbE performance with low CPU utilization,  8200 Series CNAs excel in virtualized environments. The series features multiple protocol offload, and concurrent LAN (TCP/IP) and SAN (FCoE, iSCSI) protocol processing over a shared 10GbE link. They offer low CPU utilization, freeing up server cycles for business-critical applications and the increased mobility of VMs. CNAs are interoperable with all existing LAN, NAS and SAN environments and support nearly every hypervisor, OS and boot environment. QLogic QConvergeConsole provides multi-platform, single-pane-of-glass management of FCoE, iSCSI and TCP/IP protocols for ease-of-administration and converged network deployment.

FC Adapters-transforming server connectivity into competitive advantage
2500 Series 8Gb FC adapters are designed for next-generation virtualized data centers with powerful multi-processor, multi-core servers. The 2500 Series is optimized for virtualization, power, RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability), security and management to transform server connectivity into competitive advantage. Adapters provide investment protection by maintaining backward compatibility with previous FC network and PCIe host bus speeds, and are set apart from all other 8Gb FC adapters thanks to two breakthrough innovations under the QLogic Star Power Green Initiative-Dynamic Power Management and Cool HBA technologies. Dynamic power management is an ability of the 2500 Series adapter to power down lanes on the PCIe bus and consumes only the amount of power necessary while maintaining full link-speed. QLogic Cool HBA technology is the ability of products like 2500 Series HBAs to operate without any air flow, unlike competitive products which require fans to be cool.