Emulex Delivers Range of 8/16Gb FC and 10GbE Connectivity Solutions

Emulex Corporation announced the availability of a range of I/O connectivity solutions for the new HP ProLiant Gen8 servers, based on the Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 product family.

This HP ProLiant Gen8 is designed to accelerate performance of virtualized environments and deliver the intelligence necessary to optimize data center effectiveness.

Connectivity solutions provided by Emulex include modular LAN on Motherboards (referred to as HP FlexibleLOMs), FCoE and iSCSI Converged Network Adapters (CNAs), 10GbE NICs, and 8 and 16Gb FC HBAs.

“We’re enabling a convergence-ready infrastructure with market-leading, integrated 10GbE, FCoE and FC connectivity solutions for the new HP ProLiant Gen8 blade and rack server platforms,” said Shaun Walsh, SVP marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “With the broadest range of I/O connectivity support for the HP Converged Infrastructure, customers can leverage the Emulex common driver stack and management application for physical and virtual networking solutions, including HP FlexFabric and HP Flex10 and HP Virtual Connect.”

Key features of the Emulex I/O connectivity solutions
for HP ProLiant Gen8 servers include:

• Industry Protocol Offload Performance: vEngine technology offers FCoE, iSCSI and TCP/IP offload, including TCP Offload Engine (TOE), to provide server efficiency and higher virtualization ratios.
• Gen 5 FC Connectivity: LightPulse Gen 5 FC (16Gb FC) HBAs deliver more than 1.2 IO/s on a single port, [1] the highest level of FC adapter performance available. Gen 5 FC HBAs also deliver up to 10x better reliability than competing HBAs [2] with a cool running ASIC and fail-proof passive heat sink for heat management within the server, rather than utilizing a fan.
• Increased I/O Bandwidth with PCIe 3.0 Support: LightPulse Gen 5 FC HBAs for ProLiant servers support PCIe 3.0, which provides a faster I/O bus, more PCIe lanes and increased I/O bandwidth and delivers performance for applications – such as virtualization and database management systems – by matching the performance capabilities of ProLiant Gen8 servers based on the new Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 product family.
• Network Convergence: Based on IEEE standards and an enterprise-hardened FC stack, FCoE supports storage and network traffic on converged infrastructure. It can help customers save up to 30% on adapters and switches, 80% on cables and 40% on power and cooling, and is compatible with existing FC storage and switches. [3]
• Centralized Management: With a single driver model, HP FlexFabric and Flex-10 adapters can be controlled, configured and managed from a single console using Emulex OneCommand Manager. This enables enterprise scalability with time-saving features that provide more than twice the adapter management functionality and take half the time to install and manage compared to other I/O solutions. (4) OneCommand Manager plug-in for VMware vCenter Server allows users to manage adapters across hundreds of servers natively from the VMware vCenter Server console.

HP support for Emulex adapters spans across generations and protocols. Utilizing FCoE and iSCSI CNAs, NICs, FC HBAs and FlexibleLOMs provided by Emulex in HP data center environments, customers can leverage a common driver stack and management tools.

[1] Demartek Emulex LPe16000B 16Gb Fibre Channel HBA Evaluation, October 2012
[2] Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing
[3] Based on Emulex Convergenomics Cost Calculator
[4] Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing