Enhancements to Emulex OneConnect UCNAs

At VMworld 2011, Emulex Corporation announced virtualization and convergence enhancements to its OneConnect 10GbE Universal Converged Network Adapter (UNCA) family, including support for iSCSI over Data Center Bridging (DCB) and new Universal Multi-Channel (UMC) technology.

"The Emulex Enterprise iSCSI solution leverages IEEE DCB standards to support iSCSI over a converged, lossless network with the enterprise-level performance that is necessary for business-critical and workload-intensive applications," said Shaun Walsh, vice president of marketing, Emulex. "In addition, our new UMC technology allows data centers to optimally allocate 10GbE bandwidth for virtualized servers, which translates to greater cost savings and better use of server resources."

With these enhancements, Emulex OneConnect UCNAs:

• Maximize VM Networking Connectivity with UMC technology: UMC capabilities enable IT managers to have switch independent NIC partitioning that enables multiple PCI functions for each OneConnect 10GbE adapter port, which can then be assigned to individual VMs.
• Reduce CAPEX: Using UMC to partition 10GbE ports, data center managers can reduce the number of adapters required for virtual server functions vs. multiple 1GbE or 10GbE NICs.
• Improve QoS: Emulex’s Enterprise iSCSI technology supports IEEE DCB standards that include Priority Flow Control (PFC) and Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) to manage bandwidth allocation between network and storage traffic groups and to ensure consistent, lossless data transport.
• Support I/O for up to 50 Percent More VMs/Server: OneConnect 10Gb iSCSI adapters support iSCSI offload with Emulex vEngine technology for converged and non-converged networks, enabling I/O for up to 50 percent more VMs per server when compared to a NIC and software initiator.
• Enable Flexible Network Convergence Deployment: Emulex delivers flexible configuration on one wire, a key promise of network convergence, by providing the ability to deploy I/O connections that support IP, NAS, iSCSI and FCoE with priority flow control for each physical or virtual port, and the ability to define network bandwidth and quality of services with multiple protocols on a single card.

Emulex’s new UMC technology is based on the IEEE Edge Virtual Bridging standard and allows network bandwidth to be allocated for specific network functions using any supported 10GbE switch with no requirement to modify switch settings. Each port provides up to four NIC functions that can be allocated for different uses, such as guest traffic, VM migration and console management for virtualized servers. iSCSI and FCoE functions are also supported with OneConnect storage adapters.

"The ability to configure virtual NICs to support more scalable network and storage I/O with Emulex’s new UMC technology is compelling for customers to optimize bandwidth usage," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Emulex continues to develop innovative functionality to help IT managers optimize server and network virtualization environments and accelerate the migration from 1GbE to 10GbE."