… With Fabric “Freedom” …

QLogic Corp. announced it has extended its Adaptive Convergence strategy by introducing a portfolio of products, including adapters, switches and routers with the flexibility to power 16Gb FC or 10Gb Ethernet converged networks from the same hardware.

QLogic’s newest solutions are designed to help companies smoothly transition their data center networks at their own pace, and provide the versatility to handle any protocol, any host, any storage and any fabric, empowering virtualized enterprises and cloud computing environments with complete fabric freedom.

QLogic’s Adaptive Convergence strategy extends FC investments while simplifying the migration path toward converged virtualized IT environments. The new portfolio of solutions delivers ‘any-to-any’ connectivity for service-based IT environments and allows service providers to unleash the potential of cloud computing.

"By building TCP/IP, iSCSI, FCoE and native FC all into a complete portfolio, we are enabling enterprises and cloud computing service providers to create networks without having to worry about future migration paths," said Simon Biddiscombe, president and chief executive officer, QLogic.
 
QLogic’s new data center family of solutions improves performance and reduces complexity and lowers operational and capital costs, while easing future design concerns. The end-to-end Adaptive Convergence strategy lays the foundation for a responsive, agile enterprise environment. OEMs, enterprises and cloud service providers can enhance the value of their network solutions and eliminate the tradeoff between today’s legacy networks and future migration concerns while spending less time on typical day-to-day IT challenges.
 
Featuring the company’s flexible port (flex port) technology, QLogic’s Universal Access Point switches give servers access to all of today’s advanced storage and converged networking capabilities, allowing customers to connect FC, FCoE, 10Gb Ethernet or iSCSI devices to any port. QLogic iSR routers will allow cross-protocol routing for 16Gb FC, 10GbE/1GbE iSCSI and 10GbE FCoE, multi-protocol host connectivity to storage systems, SAN-over-WAN connectivity for business continuity and disaster recovery, as well as enterprise data migration solutions, providing support for cloud computing – private, public and hybrid.

"The 10Gb Ethernet market continues to expand and converged platforms are beginning to gain traction in the market," said Alan Weckel, Ethernet switch analyst, Dell’Oro Group. "While we are still very early in the migration towards 10Gb Ethernet for server connectivity, data center deployments including 10Gb Ethernet top-of-rack for server access are driving most of the revenue growth in the market."
 
"QLogic’s latest, highly scalable portfolio provides an excellent cost-to-performance ratio for FC customers while at the same time enabling organizations to seamlessly adopt network convergence in the future," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst from ESG. "With the ability to handle any protocol, at any port the new QLogic platform is highly versatile with the capability to reduce costs and complexity in the data center."
 
"OEMs, enterprises and cloud service providers are in an evolution of network convergence. A clear migration path to highly virtualized and cloud architectures establishes a leading position in the industry," said Randy Kerns, Senior Strategist from Evaluator Group. "QLogic’s new product portfolio with the versatility to handle any protocol, at any port, across three product families provides customers with needed capabilities in the transition to virtual and cloud computing environments."
 
"While 10GbE-based converged networks continue to evolve as a viable solution for organizations to reduce power, costs and overall IT footprint, many data centers have invested heavily in FC’s performance and reliability advantages, now enhanced by 16Gb bandwidth," said Sergis Mushell, principal research analyst, Gartner. "Folding 10Gb Ethernet and 16Gb FC under one, common technology platform helps protect customers’ legacy investments while allowing them to adopt 10Gb Ethernet-based solutions in a non-disruptive manner, at their own pace."
 
"Enterprise IT wants a smooth on-ramp to converged networks which will one day connect to the cloud, and that means protecting their investment in Fibre Chanel SANs," said Frank Berry CEO, IT Brand Pulse. "With the ability to support 16Gb FC and 10Gb Ethernet on the same network, new QLogic adapters and switches will play a key role in extending FC’s position as the dominant SAN technology for another five years."
 
"We are excited about QLogic’s highly scalable product portfolio as they provide a superior cost-performance solution today for FC customers while at the same time establishing a clear path to cloud IT architectures of the future," Deni Connor, founding analyst from Storage Strategies NOW. "The versatility to handle any protocol, at any port reduces complexity while significantly lowering costs and enabling more flexible, agile fabric delivery."
 
"One of the biggest complaints we hear from Wikibon practitioners is that they need to buy and support separate hardware for FC SAN infrastructure," said David Vellante, chief research analyst at Wikibon.org, an IT think tank. "This announcement from QLogic takes a major step to eliminating this problem because going forward, customers can acquire infrastructure that speaks the language of both FC and Ethernet. This is especially important in virtualized and cloud environments where standard configurations need to be rapidly replicated and provisioned. Rather than having to determine which storage protocol will be used, customers can deploy infrastructure that will support any application independent of storage technology including FC, iSCSI, NAS or FCoE."