Start-Up Aprius Launches Ethernet-Based I/O Virtualization Platform

Aprius, Inc., a systems company developing shared I/O resources for data centers, announced the availability of its technology platform for I/O Virtualization, offering a simple approach for I/O provisioning and management. Aprius gives data center managers the power to virtualize I/O intensive applications, consolidate resources and reduce I/O infrastructure costs and power by up to 70 percent.

The Aprius technology provides many data center servers access to PCI Express (PCIe) I/O resource pools over a standard layer-2 Ethernet network, extending the servers across all network, storage and peripheral resources via a single Ethernet connection. By tunneling PCIe over Ethernet, Aprius maximizes the benefits of server virtualization, enabling a more dynamic network and storage infrastructure to virtualize, share and manage I/O resources. This approach is in marked contrast to the previous generation of I/O Virtualization solutions that create a separate fabric for I/O inserted between or to replace existing switching infrastructure in the data center.

Partners and enterprises can work with Aprius to evaluate and test the solution, and saw the first-ever public demonstration of the company’s approach at the Interop Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas. Aprius demonstrated the sharing of three card types across a group of industry standard rack-mount servers, interoperating with a 6G SAS Controller supporting SR-IOV from LSI Corporation, a Fibre Channel HBA from QLogic and a Neterion 10G Ethernet (10GbE) NIC supporting SR-IOV from Exar. The shared cards interface to industry-standard data center switches, including Blade Network Technologies RackSwitch G8124 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch.

"Effective fabric computing, where memory and I/O pools are disaggregated but assembled on-demand over a converged Ethernet fabric, requires innovative technologies that will move this vision forward," said Andrew Butler, vice president and analyst at Gartner. "Server virtual I/O represents a technology that facilitates the shift of a workload or workloads among x86 servers, and the use of virtual I/O makes it easier to install and manage servers by reducing the time and cost associated with moving an OS and/or application from one server device to another."

The Aprius technology connects up to 32 servers via 10GbE to a shared ‘pool’ of PCIe slots that are virtualized and presented to a server as many virtual devices. The greatest amount of virtualization and sharing within the Aprius technology is achieved by deploying SR-IOV compliant cards, although the PCIe slots can accept any standard PCIe cards, such as Fibre Channel HBAs, SAS storage controllers, NICs, PCIe Flash storage devices and co-processor cards.

"Server virtualization has moved from simply consolidating physical servers and delivering the economic benefits of increased server utilization, to an enabler of a more dynamic, mobile server infrastructure," said Luca Bert, director of DAS RAID architecture and strategic planning, LSI. "While planning for LSI server storage products, we believe that the next virtualization wave will focus on creating a much more dynamic infrastructure around the server, including the dynamic provisioning of I/O resources. Hardware-based SR-IOV support in host adapter cards and I/O Virtualization systems from vendors such as Aprius help achieve that goal."

Today, enterprises that manage virtual data centers with highly utilized servers and many virtual machines (VMs) are beginning to experience rising and varied I/O needs based on VM density, individual application demands and an increasingly dynamic computing infrastructure. Enterprises predict they will soon need new technologies and tools to better manage I/O resources.

"Virtualizing applications that require high-performance network I/O has been a major challenge for IT organizations," said John Williams, vice president of Datacom and Storage at Exar Corporation. "Exar’s Neterion family of 10 GbE adapters is optimized for virtualization, and provides an ideal solution for enabling maximum throughput and agility with the next-generation Aprius shared I/O platforms."

Varun Nagaraj, CEO of Aprius, said: "Our Interop demonstration underscores our vision and work toward enabling the technology that is fundamental to the creation of I/O resource pools over a converged Ethernet fabric. I/O resource pools enable higher-peak performance per server, better capacity utilization of the aggregate resource pool and greater flexibility in dealing with shifting workloads."