vMotions a Killer App for 10GbE at Vonage
April 13, 2012 09:00 AM
Every year since the first Global 2000 company installed VMware, server virtualization has been at the core of more and more data center architectures. Vonage is one major corporation that is now making the leap, and its architects shared with me how 10 Gigabit Ethernet is playing a key role in how the organization handles vMotions.
Dell Compellent: Third-Quarter Report Card
December 12, 2011 09:47 AM
In February, Dell acquired Compellent Technologies, a pioneer in virtualized storage. Are Dell customers better off? And are Dell shareholders getting their money's worth? Here are my third-quarter grades for the acquisition.
QLogic Adds 5 Years To Fibre Channel
October 07, 2011 08:03 AM
On Sept. 28, QLogic extended its Adaptive Convergence Strategy by announcing a new portfolio of products, including FlexSuite adapters, Universal Access Point switches and iSR Intelligent Storage Routers. The strategy and new products represent some important advancements in converged networking.
Calling It: Dell Acquires Brocade
June 02, 2011 10:30 AM
A Canaccord Adams report, "Dell Looks Poised for a Networking Move," seems to have merit, and industry insiders are claiming to have heard about the deal. The company is dramatically cutting expenses, and the Dell Storage Forum is going on next week, a perfect venue to announce the acquisition.
Brocade Flexes Fabric Muscle At Technology Day Summit
May 05, 2011 07:09 AM
Last June, the industry embraced the introduction of the Brocade One architecture, VCS technology and VDX switches--which for the first time brought to life a new fabric network design for flatter scale-out in virtualized clouds. At its Technology Day Summit in San Jose, Brocade presented its vision for the fabric industry, unveiled its next-generation fabric architecture called CloudPlex and announced the availability of several new products.
Brocade Unveils 1st Fabric Adapter Technology
May 02, 2011 11:36 AM
Analyst reports, press articles and the blogosphere are full of commentary about new fabric architectures from Brocade, Cisco and Juniper, that are designed for flatter scale-out in virtualized clouds, LAN/SAN convergence and 40/100Gbs performance. Brocade was the first to introduce this class of fabric with the unveiling of its Brocade One architecture, VCS technology and VDX switches in June of 2010. Cloud-optimized fabrics built with this class of technology connect virtual servers and their application workloads to other virtual servers, as well as to virtual LUNs in storage resource pools--all while maintaining secure, load-balanced client access to the Web, applications and databases deployed on virtual machines.
Emulex Gains Fibre Channel HBA Market Share Over QLogic In 2010
February 01, 2011 07:00 AM
In 2001, Emulex commanded 80 percent of the $25 million Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) market. QLogic unveiled the industry's first single-chip HBA in 2002, and leveraged its two-year technology lead into market share gains over Emulex in each of the following eight years. Emulex battled back starting in 2008, when the company regained share in various quarters, but still lost ground for the full years 2008 and 2009. Emulex momentum continued through 2010, when, for the first time since the industry started counting Fibre Channel HBAs, Emulex gained market share over QLogic for an entire year.
IT Pros Vote Cisco in FCoE Switch Brand Leader Survey
January 28, 2011 15:19 PM
Cisco recently swept the FCoE Switch Brand Leader Awards for the second year in a row, based on responses from IT professionals who participated in an IT Brand Pulse Brand Leader Survey. The results demonstrate that the IT community recognizes the leadership role Cisco has played in converged networking and FCoE.
Broadcom Raises the Bar for CNA Technology
January 26, 2011 16:00 PM
Broadcom recently unveiled the BCM578x0, its latest generation of 10Gbit Ethernet ASICs for LAN-on-Motherboard (LOM) and NIC applications, and the first in a new class of converged network adapters (CNAs), or converged NICs (C-NICs). The new family of ASICs includes several innovations that raise the bar for CNA technology and provide a glimpse at the capabilities of the next generation of high performance Ethernet adapters.
Brocade and Dell Enhance iSCSI Storage
January 25, 2011 07:00 AM
Since the introduction of iSCSI storage in 2004, the population of 1Gbit iSCSI storage arrays has grown to comprise almost a third of all disk arrays shipped each year. Connecting servers to all those 1Gbit iSCSI SANs requires only a generic port on a server LAN-on-motherboard (LOM) chip, or 1Gbit Ethernet NIC. No special Ethernet hardware or software is needed because IP networks don't discriminate between NAS/SAN storage traffic and LAN traffic. That's because the iSCSI protocol is transparently encapsulated into Ethernet packets, and only basic iSCSI-related network services exist.
Mellanox and QLogic Play Duopoly
November 30, 2010 17:20 PM
On Monday, Mellanox said it will buy Voltaire for $8.75 per share, or about $218 million. Excluding Voltaire's cash, Mellanox is getting the company for about $176 million. The $200 million per year InfiniBand networking market is now a duopoly comprising Mellanox and QLogic, the two suppliers that design their own adapter and switch chips.
Extreme Makeover: FalconStor Edition
November 12, 2010 10:00 AM
Founded in 2000, FalconStor is one of the companies that pioneered the current generation of advanced data protection software such as Virtual Tape Library (VTL), Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and Storage Virtualization. In 2007, after seven years of steady growth in shareholder value, the price for a share of FALC hit an all-time high of $13.90, and FalconStor's market cap almost reached $600 million. By November of 2008, FALC slid to an all-time low of $2.15--but the company continued to build on the same blueprint until the sudden resignation in September, 2010, of longtime CEO, ReiJane Huai.
Modular LOM Coming To a Server Near You
November 06, 2010 00:57 AM
In the server market, where the use of industry standard components makes it difficult to design products that stand-out, new networking technologies offer the promise of differentiation. Higher performance 10GbE, convergence and virtualization are examples of important networking technologies that are still in the early stages of market adoption. Built on the DCB industry standard foundation, new 10 gigabit converged network adapters and switches are pouring into the market from traditional Ethernet giants and pioneering Fibre Channel or InfiniBand vendors. But to really achieve network convergence today, data center managers would need their 10 gigabit vendors to provide adapters and switches to immediately displace the combined capabilities of current best-in-class Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand products.
Storage: A Dell Growth Engine
October 14, 2010 08:00 AM
The week's Dell EqualLogic User Conference in sunny San Diego wrapped up Friday, October 8th. I left the conference with a belief that storage will play a bigger role in Dell's future success. The following are the top ten reasons why storage will be a growth engine for Dell:
EqualLogic User Conference: Michael Dell
October 08, 2010 09:00 AM
The highlight of day two at the EqualLogic User Conference in San Diego was the involvement of Michael Dell, whose company acquired EqualLogic in 2007. Mr. Dell walked the halls talking to end-users, presented a lively keynote and participated in a small Q&A for bloggers. The presence of Mr. Dell, an industry icon, delivered this message to conference attendees: EqualLogic customers are important.
EqualLogic User Conference: The Virtual Era
October 06, 2010 13:00 PM
I believe iSCSI will emerge as the dominant type of storage area network (SAN) within five years, exceeding Fibre Channel and FCoE storage in external arrays shipped by 2015. Underneath this technology transition, the interaction between leading iSCSI vendors and data center managers is where the rubber hits the road. That means Dell's EqualLogic User Conference in rainy San Diego is the perfect place to hear the market leader's vision for the future, the reaction from IT professionals, and ultimately to validate if my projections are on-track.
Broadcom Doubles VMware CPU Efficiency
September 24, 2010 10:00 AM
A few weeks ago, VMware announced that vSphere 4.1 enables 10Gb iSCSI hardware offload in the Broadcom 957711 Converged NIC (C-NIC). Before VMware supported 10Gb iSCSI offload, data center managers connected their VMware servers to 10Gb iSCSI SANs using a combination of NIC hardware and fat iSCSI device drivers, a configuration where most of the iSCSI protocol processing is done by the VMware server. Now with vSphere 4.1, VMware supports the latest generation of converged C-NICs that use thin iSCSI drivers, a scenario where most of the iSCSI protocol processing is done by the iSCSI offload engine in the C-NIC. My expectation for 10Gb iSCSI offload is that storage deployed with VSphere 4.1 will run faster and use a lot less of the precious CPU resources that rightfully belong to virtual machines and business applications.
Virtual Instruments: Early Incumbents In The VIO Market
August 20, 2010 11:30 AM
Privately held Virtual Instruments is a company to watch. The company is a 2008 spin-out of Finisar Corporation that has established early incumbency in the nascent market for Virtual Infrastructure Optimization [VIO], the next big wave in management of information technology. Founded in 2008, the company is funded by a group of highly experienced, well known IT industry veterans including CEO John Thompson. The former CEO of Symantec Corporation, Mr. Thompson played a key role in the development of two markets that grew to multi-billion dollars in value: distributed systems management and internet applications security. Mr. Thompson brings world-class leadership experience, familiarity with emerging infrastructure management technology, and a proven track record of successfully exploiting new infrastructure management market opportunities to Virtual Instruments.
QLogic Enters The Ethernet Switch Market
August 17, 2010 13:00 PM
On June 23, 2010, QLogic announced that its new FCoE ASIC, code-named Bullet, is now incorporated into the HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-port modules used inside of HP blade servers. This marks an important design win for QLogic as well as a stealthy entry into the Ethernet switch market.
Network Security Industry Working Group Forming
August 10, 2010 12:52 PM
If you're a Network Administrator or vendor, I'm sure you will benefit from an "apples to apples" comparison of test data on how effective your network security systems operate. To that end, a new consortium is being formed to develop an industry-standard test suite to achieve that goal. What does this all mean to you?
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