QLogic With Single Chip CNAs Certified With vSphere 4

QLogic announced that its complete lineup of 8100 Series single chip converged network adapters (CNAs) are now certified with VMware vSphere 4, the industry’s leading platform for data center virtualization, for both Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and 10Gb Ethernet applications.

The combination of QLogic second generation CNAs with VMware vSphere 4 enables customers to attain a higher degree of data center efficiency – an Intelligent Converged Data Center – where thousands of virtual machines (VMs) supporting enterprise business applications run across densely packed rows of servers over converged, unified networks. In a VMware vSphere-based virtual data center with FCoE, customers can run all of their resources on a single high speed 10GbE data pipe, essentially cutting costs in half for cables, adapters, switches and management consoles.

"The real-world business need to better utilize IT assets will fundamentally fuel FCoE adoption and QLogic and VMware are at the apex of this market opportunity," said David Vellante, chief research advocate, Wikibon.org. "Increasingly, we expect to see FCoE and VMware implemented specifically to increase asset utilization and reduce power consumption and heat dissipation. Single chip converged network adapters like QLogic’s Network Plus Architecture are a leading example of technology that will complement virtualization without sacrificing performance."

"VMware virtualization platforms and QLogic FCoE adapters have complementary goals of reducing power and cooling costs while enabling significantly higher levels of server density," said Amit Vashi, vice president of marketing, Host Solutions Group, QLogic. "Through tight integration with VMware vCenter 4 Server, QLogic’s converged network adapters enhance the user experience while running multiple business applications. QLogic has worked closely with VMware to enable high availability, security and scalability in virtualized environments while preserving compute resources across both storage and networking platforms."

QLogic 8100 series CNAs are seeing widespread deployments and now support all recent versions of the VMware platform, and are the only single chip CNAs generally available through leading Tier One OEM partners such as EMC, IBM and NetApp and over 1,000 channel partners and distributors worldwide.

"VMware vSphere is designed to help IT transform their infrastructure, making operations fundamentally simpler, more efficient and more flexible as customers continue their journey to the private cloud," said Shekar Ayyar, vice president, Infrastructure Alliances, VMware. "By using VMware vSphere with virtualization-ready products such as QLogic’s 8100 Series converged network adapters, we believe customers will be able to realize the TCO benefits that FCoE has to offer while preserving existing investments in Fibre Channel technologies."