Emulex Partners With 10GbE Companies

Emulex Corporation is partnering with 10Gb/s Ethernet companies to develop joint solutions that help customers make the transition from 1Gb/s Ethernet to 10Gb/s Ethernet, so they can reap the benefits of network consolidation and convergence. Emulex and its expanded partner ecosystem, including Arista Networks, BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), Extreme Networks, Force10 Networks, Ixia, Juniper Networks and Voltaire, are collaborating to solve the challenges inherent in major technology transitions and to educate the market on the benefits of converging Local Area Networks (LANs) and Storage Area Networks (SANs) onto 10Gb/s Ethernet.

"In every market segment partnerships across the ecosystem is a strategic requirement," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "In the 10Gb/s Ethernet market we’ve been working closely with leading partners to grow and expand the capabilities of 10Gb/s Ethernet for IP, iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and create a unified management and value-added services framework with our partners."

A recent study published by IT Brand Pulse found that 52% of IT managers feel that the transition to 10Gb/s Ethernet is necessary because 1Gb/s Ethernet no longer provides enough performance. The drivers for migration to 10Gb/s Ethernet are led by the demands of server virtualization, followed by next generation virtual IO solutions from leading blade server OEMs’ virtual IO solutions, such as HP Flex-10, IBM Virtual Fabric, Dell and Cisco UCS, and increased use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) (voice and video) that requires quality of service features that are inherent to 10Gb/s Data Center Bridging (DCB) Ethernet adapters.

"It’s not a question of ‘if’ end users will move to 10Gb/s Ethernet, but ‘when.’ End users know they’ll need 10Gb/s Ethernet technology and almost half are already investigating its deployment in their data centers," said Frank Berry, chief executive officer, IT Brand Pulse. "These IT managers view the move to 10Gb/s Ethernet as an architectural issue and they need help making the transition and developing a clear, long-term migration plan."

In order to solve these challenges, Emulex and its partners are collaborating on integrated solutions and educational tools, such as Convergenomics – The Guide to Network Convergence Solutions, which is a comprehensive introduction to network convergence. Emulex and its partners published the fourth edition of this book. It offers IT managers a resource to help them craft their next-generation network strategy and explains how to converge protocols, such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI, onto a 10Gb/s Data Center Bridging (DCB) Ethernet backbone. .

"The modern data center demands radically simpler network designs for large-scale server, storage and cloud deployments," said Mansour Karam, director of business development, Arista Networks. "The simple two-tier design of Arista 7500 spine switches and Arista leaf switches, supporting DCB/DCBX capabilities, is a perfect complement to Emulex OneConnect UCNAs for mission-critical data centers building converged networking infrastructures."

"As one of the industry’s top providers of 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches, BLADE Network Technologies has provided the essential data center networking for more than 8 million data center Ethernet ports," said Tim Shaughnessy, vice president of marketing, BLADE Network Technologies. "Emulex is a valued technology partner in jointly delivering our shared vision of unified fabrics that utilize next-generation data center technologies, including 10 Gigabit Ethernet, virtual machine-aware networking, iSCSI and FCoE."

"Customers are adopting virtualization for cloud and data center environments and require next-generation infrastructure with improved scalability, performance and simplicity," said Kevin Ryan, director of solutions marketing, Extreme Networks. "Extreme Networks delivers a robust data center infrastructure that addresses future scalability requirements, and is a perfect complement to Emulex OneConnect network adapters that efficiently consolidate network and storage infrastructures over TCP/IP, iSCSI, or FCoE."

"Force10 Networks is pleased to partner with Emulex in helping customers build out robust, high-performance IP infrastructures that data centers, service providers and enterprises rely on when the network is their business," said Stephen Garrison, vice president of marketing, Force10 Networks. "Our partnership provides industry leadership in 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking, allowing customers to build, manage and automate network and application performance and processes over virtual and converged data center networks."

"With the convergence of data from various protocols and sources, it is important to test not only at various points in the network, but with traffic moving end-to-end," said Joe Zeto, senior marketing evangelist, Ixia. "Coupled with the latest version of their network convergence book, Emulex’s migration solution for implementing 10Gb/s Ethernet links is an important step in the evolution of complex data centers."

"In order for businesses to effectively adopt virtualization and cloud environments, their data center networks must have the flexibility to scale quickly and cost-effectively without compromising performance," said Andy Ingram, vice president of product marketing and business development, Fabric and Switching Technologies, Juniper Networks. "Emulex’s approach provides customers the ability to support 10Gb/s Ethernet TCP/IP and iSCSI, making them ideally suited for Juniper’s EX Series Switches, which deliver a simplified and highly scalable network architecture that simultaneously advances both the economics and experience of networking."

"We are very pleased to grow our partnership with Emulex to include Voltaire’s low latency Ethernet switches and software," said Asaf Somekh, vice president of marketing, Voltaire. "Emulex and Voltaire are partnering to enable customers to build high-performance, high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks for scale-out data centers and cloud computing, utilizing a simplified, flat, scale-out architecture."