BLADE’s RackSwitch Provides Low Total Cost of Ownership for Highly Virtualized IBM Server Environments
SANTA CLARA, CA: BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), the data center switching and network virtualization company, announced today that its 10 Gigabit Ethernet RackSwitch now extends the popular IBM Virtual Fabric — previously available only for BladeCenter — to multiple System x tower and rack-optimized systems.
IBM Virtual Fabric provides flexible 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, virtual port switching and support for converged networking. Compared to traditional multi-adapter 1Gb approaches, IBM Virtual Fabric can reduce acquisition costs by up to 44 percent and energy costs by up to 75 percent, reduce cable clutter by up to 75 percent and provide up to 2.5x more low-latency I/O bandwidth.
“Today’s data center networks must be adaptable to the needs of virtualization,” said Jon Oltsik, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “IBM Virtual Fabric can increase flexibility while reducing complexity, providing a significant contributor to the lower total cost of ownership that virtualization is all about. BLADE Network Technologies’ leadership in VM-aware virtualization offers IBM customers an interoperable solution at the network edge.”
BLADE’s switch products, including its RackSwitch G8124 top-of-rack switch and BNT 10G Virtual Fabric Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter, can be combined with Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters (CFFh) to provide an end-to-end Virtual Fabric solution for IBM servers.
“BLADE Network Technologies’ switches now can connect massive virtualization environments that span thousands of IBM BladeCenter and System x servers, helping simplify management and improve performance for today’s agile and demanding workloads,” said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies.
Availability The BNT Virtual Fabric 10Gb G8124 RackSwitch for IBM System x is equipped with 24 SFP+ 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and ultra-low latency for virtualization, financial analytics, clusters, medical imaging, animation, VOIP, Web 2.0, FCoE and iSCSI storage and other environments that require more I/O bandwidth. (IBM Part Number 0446017). BLADE switch products are available now from IBM.