At VMworld, Emulex demos I/O connectivity advancements for data center networking, storage devices

Sept. 1, 2011
Emulex's VMworld demonstrations include advancedments in iSCSI over Data Center Bridging, Universal Multi-Channel, 16Gb Fibre Channel connectivities.

At VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, Emulex (NYSE:ELX) is demonstrating new feature enhancements to its family of networking and storage adapters specifically engineered to enhance VMware environments and enable the virtualization of mission-critical data center workloads.

Emulex will be demonstrating the following technologies at VMworld 2011:

-- iSCSI over Data Center Bridging (DCB): This newly announced feature allows Emulex OneConnect iSCSI adapters to work over a 10GbE converged network to reduce latency and optimize bandwidth allocation and performance. Emulex will demonstrate how to configure an end-to-end lossless iSCSI storage connection between the Emulex OCe11102-I adapter and a Dell/EqualLogic PS6010 iSCSI storage array running the new v5.1 firmware, which supports lossless iSCSI traffic.

-- Universal Multi-Channel (UMC): This feature, also announced today, is supported with Emulex OneConnect OCe11102 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs). With UMC, OCe11102 dual-port UNCAs present eight unique PCI functions to the VMware ESXi™ hypervisor that can be assigned to virtual machine (VM) applications, VM migration and VM management. The demonstration will show how to set up UMC, manage bandwidth allocation and configure functions in a VMware environment.

-- 16Gb/s Fibre Channel leveraging the Emulex Engine (XE) 201 I/O Controller: The XE201 I/O Controller, billed as the industry's first quad-port controller unifying Fibre Channel and Ethernet, is driver-compatible with all previous generation Emulex LightPulse Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) for VMware environments. 16Gb/s HBAs will be critical enablers for consolidating I/O-intensive applications for VMware environments. Emulex will demonstrate the XE201 running 16Gb/s Fibre Channel on VMware ESXi, highlighting the increased performance benefit that the XE201 can offer VMware users.

-- OneCommand Manager for VMware vCenter Server v1.1: The newest version of Emulex's adapter management software, which provides twice the functionality and takes half the time to manage compared to other adapters, has been updated to support VMware ESXi, and will be managing all of the Emulex HBAs and UCNAs in the demonstrations at VMworld 2011. The OneCommand Manager plug-in for VMware vCenter Server provides lifecycle management for all Emulex adapters and supported protocols natively within the VMware vCenter Server management console.

-- OneCommand Vision: Emulex OneCommand Vision is an I/O management tool that proactively monitors I/O performance and availability within physical, virtual and cloud data center environments. This I/O management solution for VMware environments monitors end-to-end performance, including the ability to proactively detect hidden storage-side contentions that are adversely impacting application performance. This demonstration will showcase this and how OneCommand Vision enables organizations to evaluate, monitor, diagnose and improve application I/O performance.

Emulex is also hosting booth theater presentations with partners, including HP, Dell, IBM, and Nexenta, on enabling technology topics, such as 10GbE, iSCSI over DCB, virtual connectivity and cloud computing.

Resources:

Check out the Emulex XE20116Gb/s Fibre Channel Demonstration: www.emulex.com/16gbeDemo.html

Read the company's Implementer's Lab notes on this week's demonstrations: http://www.emulex.com/blogs/implementers/?p=56