I/O Virtualization

Verari Systems Joins Forces With Xsigo To Deliver Integrated Compute and I/O Density Solution

May 28, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Verari Systems, a developer of blade-based computing and storage solutions and Xsigo today announced a high-density blade solution that offers virtualized network and storage connectivity. Available immediately and sold through Verari Systems, the new solution integrates Verari’s BladeRack 2 X-Series computing platform with Xsigo’s VP780 I/O Director.

The companies claims the integrated solutions increases up to ten times the I/O connections per blade as compared to other solutions available in the market today.

“Blade systems are an ideal complement for server virtualization,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “When you add dynamic virtual I/O to this mix, it takes the value of the entire back-end to a whole new level, compounding all the benefits each derives independently. This kind of packaged functionality is exactly what is required to make the ‘virtual data center’ a reality. When you boil it down, these are root capabilities to make everything from Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to ‘utility’ computing to ‘greening up’ the data center legitimate and not just marketing hype.”

According to the press release, the Verari and Xsigo solution supports green IT by increasing compute density, enabling complete lights-out management, and allowing users to run more virtual machines per blade. Server I/O infrastructure may be reduced by 70 percent, while overall data center efficiency is increased by 100 percent.

“The increasing demand for Web 2.0 applications in the enterprise is driving unstructured data at more than 100 percent growth,” said Dan Gatti, senior vice president of Marketing, Verari Systems. “These applications require more storage and I/O connections, and as IT managers virtualize more servers, system performance is stressed. By working together, Verari and Xsigo are providing the best solution available on the market to address the requirement of high density computing and I/O and redefine the standard in enterprise computing.”

LeCroy Announces I/O Virtualization Support In The PCI Express Summit Protocol Analyzer

April 15, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

LeCroy Corporation, a supplier of oscilloscopes and serial data test solutions, announced today a new analysis package for its Summit T2-16 Protocol Analyzer that will support testing and debugging in I/O virtualization-based applications.

LeCroy aims to support the new industry Single-Root I/O Virtualization standard (SR-IOV 1.0) and the Multi-Root I/O Virtualization standard (MR-IOV). Both technologies are PCI-SIG workgroup extensions to the PCI Express standard that make it possible for a single PCI Express system to behave simultaneously as several different machines using shared hardware.

The industry is developing this technology for several reasons, including an increase in cores per socket, reducing network costs, increasing system resiliency, and eliminating redundancy in peripherals and ports across network infrastructures.

“Virtualization is a key trend in enterprise, and the PCI-SIG’s Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) technology nicely complements Intel’s own Directed I/O (VT-d) technology in providing higher performance I/O for virtualized systems,” said Jim Pappas, Director of Initiative Marketing for Intel Corporation. “Tools such as the PCI Express I/O Virtualization analysis package from LeCroy will help companies reduce the complexity of development.”

LeCroy protocol analyzers have been at the forefront of PCI Express development. All LeCroy protocol analyzers feature a hierarchical display, real-time statistics, protocol traffic summaries, detailed error reports, powerful scripting, and the ability to create user-defined test reports which allow developers to troubleshoot intricate problems and finish their projects on time.

[Source: Businesswire]

3Leaf Systems Obtains Intel License For CPU Virtualization

March 31, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

3Leaf Systems today announced it has obtained a license for Intel’s QuickPath Interconnect, which will allow it to build virtualization support for Intel servers. Previously, the company only had a HyperTransport license and only supported AMD servers.

3Leaf uses a direct communication network between server CPUs so data does not have to go over an Ethernet or Fibre Channel connection. The company fabricates special virtualization processors for the motherboard to virtualize the CPUs, memory and I/O of the entire datacenter.

The 3Leaf technology breaks down the physical walls of x86 servers and makes their resources available, as needed, across the datacenter. One of the problems in data centers is one group of servers dedicated to a task might be running at 5 % utilization, while another group is maxed out and needs more CPU cycles and more memory.

“We are enabling the next generation of the datacenter, which are going to be dynamic data centers, where resources, compute, memory or I/O could be made available to the applications on an on demand basis rather than in a static way the way it exists today,” said B.V. Jagadeesh, president and CEO of 3Leaf.

“At the end of the day we’re almost reinventing the mainframe here,” said George Crump, founder and president of Storage Switzerland, an analyst firm focused on the storage and virtualization marketplaces. “I spoke to someone at American Express who said ‘VMware is great but I can’t scale outside the box.’ I think we’re going to see that, where flexibility will require the ability to virtualize outside of the sheet metal.”

The solution is an unusual one: a chip to handle the load balancing that goes into the processor socket. So instead of an Opteron or Xeon on the motherboard socket, a 3Leaf processor goes in its place. A PCI Express card isn’t an option, as the bus is not fast enough.

The AMD-based 3Leaf processor is planned for the first half of 2009 while the Intel one is planned for the first half of 2010.

[Source: InternetNews]

Xsigo Partners With Computacenter To Deliver I/O Virtualization To Europe

March 29, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

San Jose-based Xsigo announced that it has formally partnered with European IT services and solutions provider Computacenter. The partnership, which was announced about a month ago, encompasses technical, marketing and professional services relationships and confirms Xsigo as an integral component of Computacenter’s virtualization offering.

Computacenter claims to have chosen to partner with Xsigo due to its differentiated I/O virtualization product family (watch a short interview and live demo from their VMWorld Europe 2008 booth). Computacenter is a European provider of VMware server virtualization solutions, and is headquartered in Hatfield, UK.

“Virtualization offers organizations new opportunities to increase the efficiency and agility of their IT operations, but it can also place different demands on their data center infrastructure,” said Terry Walby, director of data center solutions at Computacenter. “We are continually looking for innovation and enhancement in the technology optimization solutions we deliver to our customers. By adding Xsigo virtual I/O products to our comprehensive portfolio of virtualization solutions, we can help customers further simplify and accelerate their transformation journey towards an optimized data center equipped to cope with the demands of the future.”

Xsigo sought to extend its I/O virtualization outside the US by developing a partnership in Europe which matched its vision for virtualization and simplification of the data center. Xsigo claims its I/O virtualization solutions allow large data centers to lower their server-related operational expenses by up to 80 %, cut capital costs by 50 %, and use 70 % less cabling.

“Computacenter’s services and solutions deliver the breadth and technical expertise to help customers optimize their operations, and Xsigo is the virtual I/O part of that equation,” stated Charlie Will, vice president of international sales at Xsigo. “Computacenter selects best-in-class products, such as VMware and Xsigo, and enriches these offerings with its own expertise in sales, support, and professional services. Computacenter puts it all together so that customers can rapidly deploy tightly integrated virtualization solutions that effectively address their business requirements.”

[Source: SYS-CON]

Gear6 Raises $ 10 Million from Horizon Ventures, US Venture Partners and InterWest Partners

March 27, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Mountain View-based Gear6 today announced it has secured a $ 10 million financing round led by Horizon Ventures. Existing investors U.S. Venture Partners and InterWest Partners also participated in the round. The closing of this financing round brings the total capital invested in Gear6 to $24.5 million.

Gear6 accelerates I/O for real-time application performance and delivers centralized caching solutions in the data center. It’s most notable product is CACHEfx, a line of appliances that deliver high I/O operations per second and extremely low latency to accelerate the performance of data intensive applications, integrating both a hardware and software solution.

“We are pleased to welcome Horizon Ventures as an investor in Gear6,‘ said Tom Shea, president and chief executive officer. ‘The market for our CACHEfx scalable caching appliances is poised for significant growth and this financing round gives us the opportunity to meet increasing demand for centralized caching solutions across key markets including performance computing, databases, business intelligence, web-scale and virtualized environments.”

[Source: Ad-Hoc-News]

Egenera Inks OEM Deal With Dell

March 25, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Dell has agreed to resell and ship Egenera‘s Processing Area Network (PAN) Manager I/O virtualization software on its PowerEdge servers by June of this year. Egenera claims PAN is the epitome of what IDC calls “Virtualization 2.0,” the next step beyond simple VMware-style single server virtualization replete with scalability, faster provisioning, high availability, disaster recovery and resource balancing. Pricing for the software has yet to be released.

Egenera’s PAN Manager supports Citrix Systems Inc.’s Citrix XenServer and VMware Inc.’s virtual machines and the company plans to support Microsoft’s virtualization technology, Hyper-V, when it becomes available later this year, CTO Peter Manca said.

The OEM deal with Dell is obviously not exclusive, meaning PAN could still wind up on IBM and HP gear, although that path seems much harder to follow than sticking with Dell. The computer giant intends to sell the widgetry on PowerEdge servers initially through its Advanced Solutions unit along with infrastructure consulting services.

From the press release:

“Dell is listening to customers and providing solutions that make the virtual data center easier to deploy and manage, regardless of platform,” said Rick Becker, vice president, Dell Software & Solutions. “Dell and Egenera will help customers focus on company growth by delivering excellence in virtualized infrastructure from server performance, storage interoperability to dynamic data center management.”

“The Dell-Egenera relationship was driven by customer need for simple, agile and cost-effective solutions that virtualize and unify data center assets beyond a single server,” said Mike Thompson, president and CEO, Egenera. “We’re driving to provide customers with a powerful, integrated way to manage server, network and storage assets, with lower operational costs, increased resource utilization and uptime.”

[Source: SearchServerVirtualization]