VirtenSys Delivers PCIe-Based I/O Virtualization Switches

VirtenSys Ltd. has delivered pre-production units of its I/O Virtualization (IOV) Switch to leading server and storage customers. VirtenSys IOV systems dramatically reduce data center operational expense and complexity by virtualizing all the I/O resources used to connect servers and storage platforms to the networks. This results in reducing rack and blade server management costs by more than 60 percent, power and cooling costs by up to 30 percent and equipment costs by as much as 50 percent. VirtenSys is the first-to-market with IOV products that use the native PCI Express bus available in every server. The VirtenSys solutions enable the best price/performance and non-disruptive deployment of server I/O connectivity in the data center.

I/O Virtualization Switches drive the evolution of server and storage platforms into more efficient IT infrastructures where all the resources are virtualized, dynamically allocated on demand, independently scaled and optimally utilized. Data center configuration and management becomes a remote, automated process that eliminates physical re-configuration or human intervention. I/O Virtualization also enables the rapid adoption of new usage models and IT services such as green IT, cloud computing and software-as-a-service.

"This is a major milestone for VirtenSys," said Ahmet Houssein, President and CEO of VirtenSys. "We are very happy to have delivered these solutions to our customers, and we appreciate the support we received from our partners. Our cost-effective IOV products can de deployed in any IT infrastructure and across all vertical market segments. The benefits of I/O virtualization can be realized in all data centers, from very small implementations to large scale deployments."

According to the market research firm IDC, there is growing demand for improved virtualization of I/O to address the current and future requirements of data centers. "The current I/O infrastructure in many of today’s datacenters is complex, inflexible and costly to manage and maintain," said Jean S. Bozman, Research Vice President, Enterprise Platforms, IDC. "VirtenSys technology addresses these issues by removing bottlenecks in I/O processing. This approach to improving I/O performance for virtualized workloads will allow IT organizations to dynamically manage and allocate their resources while reducing their operational costs, and improving performance for I/O-intensive workloads, such as Web-enabled applications and databases."

Virtualized operating systems can leverage the capabilities of IOV to further improve data centers operations. "The VirtenSys approach to I/O virtualization complements the VMware Virtual Data Center Operating System and promises even greater flexibility, manageability and efficiency in IT Infrastructure deployments," said Shekar Ayyar, vice president, infrastructure alliances, VMware. "We are pleased to be working with VirtenSys in an engineering collaboration to explore integration and optimization options for our respective products. VirtenSys solutions support VMware’s vision of self-managing, self-healing virtual datacenter environments."

"When the advanced architecture of Citrix XenServer’ is combined with VirtenSys IOV technology, a virtualized server is easily capable of sustaining 10Gb/s communication for network and storage traffic, with minimal overhead on the hypervisor and guest VMs," added Simon Crosby, CTO, Virtualization & Management Division, Citrix Systems. "This allows customers to maximize their consolidation ratios and virtualize high performance, high bandwidth enterprise applications."

About VirtenSys IOV Products
VirtenSys IOV switches are changing how servers and storage systems are deployed in data centers by eliminating the rigid, over-provisioned and under-utilized I/O resources. VirtenSys IOV systems consolidate and virtualize standard I/O adapters, and share them among multiple physical and virtualized servers, without requiring any changes be made to the servers, operating systems, I/O adapters, or device drivers. Consequently the number of I/O components and cables is reduced by 90 percent, I/O utilization is improved to greater than 80 percent, throughput and reliability are greatly improved, and I/O cost and power consumption are reduced. The systems can be deployed immediately without disruption to existing data center servers, networks or management processes, thus protecting organizations’ previous investments in IT infrastructure. The systems attach directly to multiple physical servers and support Intel 10GE NICs, Neterion 10GE NICs and QLogic Fibre Channel HBAs.

Availability
The IOV Switches are available in both rack-mount and blade server form-factors, and production units are expected to be offered by VirtenSys customers to end-users within the next six to nine months. VirtenSys will continue to expand its portfolio of supported interfaces and I/O adapters including, in the near term, support for SAS/SATA I/O adapters. In addition, VirtenSys is working toward VMware Ready Certified status for the IOV Switches.