IBM Chooses Emulex for its BladeCenter Virtual Fabric

Emulex Corporation is providing a Virtual Fabric Adapter based on its OneConnect Universal Converged Network Adapter (UCNA) architecture for flexible Ethernet network connectivity in IBM BladeCenter HS22 blade servers.

This marks Emulex’s first announced 10Gb/s Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) design win based on its industry-leading OneConnect UCNA technology. This solution will be demonstrated along with BLADE Network Technologies’ convergence-ready BNT 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter at IBM’s booth during VMworld in San Francisco, Calif., August 31-September 3, 2009.

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, supporting 1Gb/s or 10Gb/s that can be configured into up to eight virtual ports with bandwidth allocation in 100Mb/s increments. License upgrades can further enhance adapter functionality with Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), delivering a future proof connectivity solution for IBM BladeCenter that enables multiple virtual NIC and FCoE ports on the same adapter.

“IBM BladeCenter HS22 blades deliver industry-leading performance and flexibility,” said Alex Yost, vice president, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “By leveraging the Virtual Fabric solution developed in partnership with Emulex and BNT, IBM offers clients a scalable, highest-performance server solution available for bandwidth intensive and virtualized data center infrastructures.”

Based on Emulex’s OneConnect UCNA technology, the Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter offers the fastest 10Gb/s Ethernet performance in the industry. Clients also have the flexibility to utilize the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter in 1Gb/s infrastructures until they are ready to upgrade, or utilize the flexibility of the virtual capabilities.

“In February 2009, we shared our vision for Ethernet driven network convergence with the introduction of Emulex’s OneConnect UCNA technology and this announcement with IBM is the first instantiation of that strategy,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. “Emulex and IBM are committed to delivering 10Gb/s Ethernet and virtual I/O solutions that help IT managers lower operating costs and scale operations through the performance and economic benefits of converged networks.”

With IBM BladeCenter HS22 blades and BLADE Network Technologies convergence-ready BNT 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter, customers can leverage up to eight Ethernet NIC and two Fibre Channel ports when they combine the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter cFFH with Emulex’s LightPulse 8Gb/s Fibre Channel CIOv Expansion Card, delivering maximum flexibility and scalability. These connectivity options make it an ideal blade solution for VMware virtualized server environments, in which it is recommended to use multiple connections for different traffic types.

“BLADE’s convergence-ready switch, which is FCoE ready, automatically recognizes Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter and has the ability to connect massive virtualization environments that span thousands of virtual switch ports, helping simplify management and improve performance for today’s agile workloads,” said Dan Tuchler, vice president of Product Management and Strategy, 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.”

The Emulex OneConnect UCNA platform is the only converged network connectivity solution that supports hardware offload and acceleration on a single chip for all major protocols: TCP/IP, TOE, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The OneConnect UCNA is optimized to support both IP and storage networking demands, enabling data center managers to meet the performance and architecture requirements of networking and storage applications with one integrated adapter solution. The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter utilizes the OneCommand™ software management framework for secure, virtualized, automated and centralized enterprise management for deployment, dynamic provisioning, asset management, virtual I/O services, connectivity management, security, and quality of service for virtualized and converged networking environments.

The combination of the IBM BladeCenter server, BLADE’s convergence-ready BNT 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter and Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter provides customers with a new a new level of data center consolidation, efficiency, flexibility and scalability.