Xsigo IT Survey Reveals Need for Virtual I/O

Xsigo Systems, Inc. announced the results of a recent technology survey where IT managers from eighty-five blue chip corporations – including Deloitte & Touche, JPM Chase, Kawasaki, Lockheed Martin, Qwest, Savvis, The World Bank Group, Toyota, Caltrans, and Verizon – disclosed they have encountered major data center connectivity challenges in the past twelve months.

Xsigo recently hosted a live webcast where 106 IT managers voluntarily gathered to learn more about virtual I/O in the data center setting. Eighty-five of the attendees responded to survey questions regarding server connectivity. Of the respondents, 92% indicated they have deployed virtualization in their data center.

Over fifty percent of respondents reported an I/O-related issue during the previous 12 months. The responses revealed that top areas of concern for those who reported issues included I/O bottlenecks (49%), server lacked needed I/O (44%), and I/O related outages (41%).

IT Managers also revealed the types of server I/O they were currently using. The answers indicate the increasing diversity of connectivity types that IT managers must now contend with, a problem that is becoming more severe as newer standards gain acceptance while co-existing with older connectivity types.

Results of an earlier survey conducted by Xsigo indicated that virtualization users typically need anywhere from 7 to 16 I/O connections per server, a requirement that drives up both cost and complexity. This requirement is expected to grow as users capitalize on the enhanced capabilities of vSphere, the newest generation of VMware virtualization software that adds more I/O bandwidth capacity and also includes new fault tolerance features. Both capabilities increase connectivity requirements, further increasing the quantity and performance loading of server connections.

Xsigo virtual I/O addresses these issues by allowing up to 64 server connections to be accommodated with only one cable to the device. Those connections can be either Fibre Channel, iSCSI, 1G Ethernet, or 10G Ethernet, allowing IT managers to provide all I/O types – both now and in the future – with a single, wire-once physical link.

"This survey shows that server I/O is an important problem, especially as virtual machines replace traditional servers," said Jon Toor, Xsigo’s vice president of marketing. "More virtual machines mean increased bandwidth requirements and more physical connections per server. Xsigo virtual I/O eliminates the limitations of physical connectivity, allowing IT managers to connect from any server to any network or storage, over any physical transport, without re-cabling, and without having to visit the data center."