Mellanox BridgeX, a Silicon Solution for FCoE

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. announced the availability of BridgeX, the industry’s first gateway solution supporting Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) technology. BridgeX, together with Mellanox ConnectX adapters and switch solutions, provides full end-to-end true networking consolidation for building green data centers and the most efficient high-performance clustering. With BridgeX, data centers will be able to retain the value of legacy storage and Ethernet systems, while maximizing overall efficiency and guaranteeing a future-proof infrastructure.

“Mellanox continues to deliver innovative technologies and solutions that help data centers be economical. BridgeX delivers a fabric-agnostic I/O consolidation solution that allows end-users to optimize the data center infrastructure to run applications over high-performance, lossless, low-latency 40Gb/s InfiniBand or 10 Gigabit Ethernet,” said Eyal Waldman, chairman, president, and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. “BridgeX is the first silicon solution for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) that allows Ethernet switch vendors to offer the most effective I/O consolidation solutions to data centers.”

BridgeX provides the highest levels of integration and flexibility with support for 40Gb/s InfiniBand, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and up to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel interfaces, and delivers full wire-speed performance with simplified management in a single device. BridgeX enables superior independent scaling of I/O nodes and LAN connections to accommodate future data center demands. BridgeX is also ideal for blade servers where it can be paired with a 10 Gigabit Ethernet or InfiniBand switch blade to provide Fibre Channel SAN connectivity from an FCoE or Fibre Channel over InfiniBand (FCoIB)-based network adapter.

“We are seeing more interest in converged I/O solutions among companies who want to improve efficiency and reduce energy and management costs, and BridgeX looks to be a strong offering in this area,” said Stephen L. Josselyn, Research Director, Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC. “By bridging Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand on a single 40-Gigabit fabric, Mellanox is making it possible for companies to migrate to a converged, higher-speed data center fabric without abandoning legacy investments in adapters and switches.”

“A cost-effective, high-performance I/O consolidation solution over InfiniBand delivers faster and low-latency access to our Lustre, NFS storage applications,” said Mark Seager, Assistant Department Head for advanced Technology of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Computation Directorate. “Integrating a BridgeX-based solution in our cluster provides seamless access to our existing LAN and SAN infrastructure that operates at line rates.”

“BridgeX provides a scalable I/O consolidation solution to the data centers that helps reduce infrastructure and energy costs by consolidating LAN and SAN access over the high-performance InfiniBand fabric,” said Raju Penumatcha, Vice President of Netra Systems and Networking at Sun Microsystems. “Mellanox BridgeX will allow solutions that deliver I/O consolidation using the lossless InfiniBand fabric.”

Pricing and Availability
Mellanox BridgeX silicon devices are available today. Pricing is available upon request. The BridgeX-based BX line of gateway systems are available for purchase today starting at a list price of $9,995.

Mellanox will be demonstrating the BridgeX BX4000, as well as the company’s industry-leading, high-performance ConnectX adapters, during VMworld Europe in Cannes, France, from February 24-26, 2009.