NetApp Selects Emulex OneConnect UCNAs

Emulex Corporation announced that its OneConnect’ Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) have been selected by NetApp, Inc. for 10Gb/s Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) host server connectivity for use with NetApp Ethernet storage solutions. Emulex FCoE connectivity will help enable NetApp customers to build a complete FCoE infrastructure and unify their Ethernet and Fibre Channel architectures.

"NetApp and Emulex have a shared strategy of bringing 10Gb/s Ethernet-based network convergence solutions to market that allow customers to take a phased approach to consolidating their storage and networking infrastructures," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "By partnering with NetApp, we’re helping customers achieve strategic advantage with end-to-end FCoE solutions that tap into existing Fibre Channel resources, while reducing power, cooling and future infrastructure costs."

The Emulex OneConnect UCNA is an FCoE CNA that meets NetApp’s rigorous standards and enables customers to run both FCoE and IP traffic concurrently through the same port and on the same wire, eliminating the need and expense for separate Storage Area Network (SAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) adapters and cables. When coupled with NetApp Ethernet storage solutions, the Emulex OneConnect UCNA architecture creates a unified, multi-protocol storage portfolio and maximizes efficiency and performance throughout the data center.

"With our FCoE and Data Center Bridging (DCB) solutions and ecosystem of solutions partners such as Emulex, we’re helping customers protect their investments in Fibre Channel as they move toward consolidating their data centers around Ethernet," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances at NetApp. "We’re proud to team with Emulex as we bring our customers leading-edge technology that helps them streamline their storage while maximizing performance and efficiency in their data centers."

Emulex’s single-chip, high-performance OneConnect UCNA is the only server adapter with full hardware protocol offload support for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), iSCSI and FCoE; the world’s fastest 10Gb/s Ethernet performance according to IT Brand Pulse’; and the ability to help customers efficiently consolidate network and storage infrastructures without changing management domains. As part of the Emulex vEngine’ technology, hardware offload and acceleration reduce server overhead and increase the number of virtual machines that can run on virtualized servers.

In addition, Emulex OneConnect UCNAs utilize Emulex’s OneCommand’ Manager 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.