Emulex Optimises Performance and Scalability for Virtualisation and the Cloud with New Ethernet and Converged Network Adapters

New Adapters Increase Server Virtualisation Density, Connect Hybrid Clouds with Virtual Networks Fabrics, Enable SDN with Open APIs and Optimise Application Delivery

COSTA MESA, Calif, January 23, 2014 – Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), a leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, today announced the next generation of high performance Ethernet connectivity solutions for virtualised, enterprise and cloud data centres. The OneConnect® OCe14000 family of 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet (10/40GbE) Network Adapters and Converged Network Adapters (CNAs), based on the next generation Emulex Engine™ (XE) 100 series of I/O controllers, enables higher virtual machine (VM) densities, supports secure hybrid clouds with Virtual Network Fabrics, leverages a new RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) based low latency architecture to deliver application acceleration, and provides an open application performance interface (API) that integrates with next generation software-defined networking (SDN) solutions.

“We have purpose-built these adapters on a highly extensible platform that can be optimised for the demands of enterprise, cloud and telco applications,” said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “We are providing a new way to optimise the deployment of new Web-scale applications, virtualised environments and software-defined infrastructures, with the ability to scale performance in three dimensions; higher bandwidth, reduced latency and increased I/O operations per second (IOPS), to address the explosive growth of IP traffic and global storage.”

The OCe14000 family of Ethernet Network Adapters is optimised to meet the needs of enterprises, cloud providers and telcos, while delivering a powerful set of features and capabilities, including:

• Enables High-Performance Virtualisation: The OCe14000 uses highly efficient and scalable hardware offload technology to transfer the overhead of virtual networking which provides up to 50 percent better CPU utilisation[1] compared to standard NICs when used for VMware VirtualWire connection, thereby increasing the number of VMs supported per server. In addition, the OCe14000 delivers a fundamental 4x performance increase in small packet network performance[2] required to scale transaction-heavy and clustered applications.

• Offers Rapid, Secure and Scalable Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: Emulex Virtual Network Exceleration™ (VNeX) offload technology provides up to 70 percent better performance[1] vs. software-only implementations of emerging Virtual Network Fabric standards such as Network Virtualisation using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE) used by Microsoft Hyper-V Network Virtualisation and Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) used in VMware’s NSX to overcome the limitations of legacy data centre networks by enabling flexible virtual workload mobility reducing deployment of VMs or network reconfiguration from days to minutes. When combined with Microsoft Dynamic VMQ or VMware NetQueue, the OCe14000 family of adapters provides the industry’s best platform for increasing VM density.

• Optimises Application Delivery with Advanced RoCE Architecture: The OCe14000 is based on a low-latency RoCE architecture that helps enterprise IT and cloud data centres optimise applications delivery for VDI, big data, next generation NoSQL and in-memory databases, along with traditional enterprise IT workloads. These new adapters will support Windows Server SMB Direct and Linux NFS protocols.

• Provides Open Enablement of Software-Defined Networking: Emulex is introducing a new SURF open API, providing the tools needed to implement SDN technology that can be optimised for next generation applications and new industry standards, such as OpenStack and OpenFlow.

• Delivers Increased Block Protocol Performance: The OCe14000 increases total block protocol IOPS by 50 percent over previous generation CNAs[2] and builds upon Emulex’s proven history of enterprise-class storage reliability.

The Emulex OCe14000 family is available now for ordering with shipments beginning this quarter for single- and dual-port 10GbE SFP+ models and single-port 40GbE QSFP+ models and pricing starts at $448 MSRP.

[1] Based on Emulex Implementers Lab blog
[2] Based on Emulex Labs testing

Supporting Quotes:
“Network virtualisation and IT automation for enterprise cloud data centres provide businesses the benefit of flexibility with increased service capabilities,” said Stephane Robineau, general manager, Enterprise Networks business, Alcatel-Lucent. “Data centre operations demand proven interoperable and innovative solutions to make network virtualisation a success. To achieve that, the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise OmniSwitch 6900 and 10K platforms, with high-density 10GbE and 40GbE interfaces, have been successfully validated with Emulex OCe14000 family of adapters, enabling end-to-end virtualisation and automation with increased performance. Emulex is a pioneer in its segment and a prime ecosystem partner of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, and together we bring value added solutions to our customers and partners.”

“The Emulex OCe14000 platform, with its convergence, network virtualisation and low latency capabilities, works in conjunction with Arista Data Centre networking switches to provide customers high speed 40GbE host connectivity with optimised capital and operational expenditures (CAPEX and OPEX) by simplifying cabling, consolidating servers and reduced power consumption,” said Ed Chapman, vice president of business development and alliances, Arista Networks. “Customers can use this combination to maximise the performance of their enterprise cloud data centre applications, including high I/O services such as storage.”

“Server OEMs are looking for scalable, high bandwidth, low latency, high port-density Ethernet solutions to address evolving server architectures that accommodate greater VM densities to virtualise more mission-critical applications,” said Seamus Crehan, President, Crehan Research. “Emulex has delivered a family of I/O controllers and Ethernet adapters addressing these needs with features such as 40GbE, RDMA, and virtual network overlay support. In conjunction with meeting next generation enterprise requirements, these features also enable cloud-architected data centres at scale.”

“The Emulex OCe14000 family of adapters – available to customers through the Dell S&P program – deliver an ideal solution for heterogeneous customer environments deploying a range of cloud, SDN, and virtualised data centres today,” said Saleem Muhammad, Dell Networking. “With higher bandwidth, reduced latency, increased IOPS, and the ability to efficiently facilitate virtual machine migration both within and between data centres, this new adapter family matches our clients’ global storage and networking needs.”

“The major trends driving modern data centres – virtualisation, cloud, convergence and hyperscale computing – place unprecedented demands on the network, storage and compute infrastructure,” said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Emulex is delivering a new generation of 10/40GbE controllers and adapters to better enable organisations to meet that demand for unprecedented scale, performance and efficiency in the data centre.”

“Huawei Converged Infrastructure Blade Server E9000 is the world’s most scalable and greenest Compute-Storage-Network converged platform for cloud computing, high performance computing (HPC), database clusters and big data analytic applications that require high-performance and low-latency network connectivity,” said Peter Liu, the chief Architect of HUAWEI IT hardware. “The single-chip quad-10GbE-port design, hardware-based FCoE and iSCSI support, low latency and RoCE features provided by the new Emulex OCe14000 platform enables us to provide our customers with microsecond-class latency performance with lower cost than 40GbE, and consolidate multiple networking services on a single high-speed Ethernet adapter platform for lower networking TCO.”

“The Emulex OCe14000 platform aligns with customer demands for 10GbE and 40GbE, especially for those that require high bandwidth and low latency in the financial services, retail, and government industries,” said Darrel Ward, vice president, Enterprise Products Group, Lenovo. “Lenovo Think Servers based on the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 product family require increased I/O performance to balance increased processing power, performance and scalability, and this new product family from Emulex matches these needs explicitly.”

“Windows Server 2012 R2 delivers ground-breaking virtualisation and networking capabilities, and the Emulex OCe14000 product family takes advantage of these innovations by including support for Windows Server Hyper-V Network Virtualisation, which is core to Microsoft’s Software Defined Networking solution, and SMB Direct,” said Anant Sundaram, senior product marketing manager, Server and Tools Marketing, Microsoft. “Together, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Emulex OCe14000 bring enterprise data centres enhanced networking scalability and superior performance for their virtualised and cloud environments.”

“Oracle Linux with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and Oracle VM, are optimised for enterprise and cloud workloads and designed to allow rapid application deployment,” said Rex Wang, vice president, Product Marketing, Oracle. “Customers who implement these together with the latest Emulex adapters can achieve significant performance for their database and application needs.”

“The Quanta Rackgo X OCP product line-up is designed for low CAPEX and OPEX with simplicity, energy and cooling efficiency, high density, serviceability, scalability, and manageability. It is ideally suited for cloud service providers and large enterprise data centres demanding the highest level of efficiency,” said Mike Yang, general manager of Quanta QCT. “Emulex OCe14000 adapters complement our OCP product line-up with the performance and efficiency needed to maximise customers’ data centre deployments, and the RDMA and virtual network fabric support for applications in the cloud.”

“VMware vCloud® Suite enables the software-defined data centre by delivering virtualised infrastructure services, including compute, networking, security and storage,” said Sanjay Katyal, vice president, Global Alliances and OEMs, VMware. “The OCe14000 family of adapters from Emulex can further accelerate the performance of virtualised environments, while improving network throughput, and offers customers a highly integrated, powerful and efficient solution.”

Tweet this: #Emulex Optimises Performance and Scalability for #Virtualisation and the #Cloud with New Adapters: http://ow.ly/sNQwl #EmulexNextGen

Additional Resources:

• Watch “The Next Generation of Enterprise and Cloud Connectivity Solutions’ videocast live here: http://www.emulex.com/resources/webcasts/

• Read our Virtual Network Exceleration whitepaper here: http://www.emulex.com/artifacts/2eb01218-d372-4cda-a6d5-6e23bf9956cf/elx_wp_all_virtual_networkexcel_oce14000.pdf

• Learn more about the Emulex OCe14000 family here: http://www.emulex.com/products/converged-network-adapters/ and here: http://www.emulex.com/products/ethernet-network-adapters/

• Read our blogs on today’s news:

  • Implementer’s Lab

  • Emulex Labs

Follow Emulex on Twitter.

About Emulex
Emulex, a leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, provides hardware and software solutions for global networks that support enterprise, cloud, government and telecommunications. Emulex’s products enable unrivalled end-to-end application visibility, optimisation and acceleration. The Company’s I/O connectivity offerings, including its line of ultra high-performance Ethernet and Fibre Channel-based connectivity products, have been designed into server and storage solutions from leading OEMs, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, NetApp and Oracle, and can be found in the data centres of nearly all of the Fortune 1000. Emulex’s monitoring and management solutions, including its portfolio of network visibility and recording products, provide organisations with complete network performance management at speeds up to 100Gb Ethernet. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. For more information about Emulex (NYSE:ELX) please visit http://www.Emulex.com.

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Source: RealWire