Emulex was just named the Converged Network Adapter Brand Leader for the third year in a row by IT Brand Pulse™. Earlier in the year, Emulex’s OneConnect™ Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) received the 2011 XChange XCellence Award in the category of “Breakthrough Technology Vendor.”

So, it’s no surprise that over the last quarter, we’ve seen a substantial percentage increase in the amount of 10GbE Network Interface Cards (NICs) sold; but the biggest surprise is the DRASTIC sales percentage jump we’ve seen in iSCSI adapters.

It’s obvious the 10Gb Ethernet NIC and CNA markets are growing, but we want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the future of FCoE vs iSCSI deployments. What’s driving iSCSI CNAs in the marketplace? What are you seeing, and what are you selling?

To participate in this conversation join the Emulex Connect Partner LinkedIn Group now or, if you’re already a member, comment here. We’d love to hear from you!

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Everyone loves to hear when prices drop on the latest and greatest technology. And guess what? We’ve lowered the pricing on our award winning Emulex® OneConnect 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) Network Interface Cards (NICs) by 10-15 percent. So now you can get the market-leading NIC… with the most 10GbE ports shipped and the preferred technology choice of 9 out of the 10 largest OEMs…at an even more attractive price.

To sweeten the opportunity even more, we’ve also got some outstanding promotions running this quarter. For example, you can get the first three NICs you sell to any new end user for 50% off, and you can get up to $650 dollars off when selling our Emulex® One Connect NICs or Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) with Cisco Nexus Switches.

Make sure and contact one of our Emulex Sales Reps now at InsideSales@emulex.com and ask about the latest and greatest promos. We don’t want you to miss out on the savings!

Happy Selling,
Shawn Pattock

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My name is Marc Nagao, I’d like to introduce myself as the latest member of the Emulex Channel team. I have been in the industry for over a decade and a half. Boy, time flies, right? My hat rack includes hats in product management, product marketing, channel marketing and marketing communications. I’ll be blogging here with our resident Channel blogger, Shawn Pattock, on topics such as new product releases, events, programs and promotions. I look forward to engaging with you!

Today, I am going to discuss the new enhancements that we recently announced to the OneConnect™ 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) Universal Converged Network Adapter (UNCA) family and what they mean to you and your customers.

In the true spirit of continuous improvement, these enhancements include support for iSCSI over Data Center Bridging (or DCB) and Universal Multi-Channel (yep, UMC) technology. These are two new huge convergence and virtualization improvements to the already-capable OneConnect 10GbE UCNA product line.

But what does this mean to you and for your customers? Let me boil it down in a couple of bullets:

• iSCSI over DCB: iSCSI over a converged, lossless network providing enterprise-class performance.
• UMC: Ability to partition each 10GbE port into four unique functions that be allocated to individual virtual machines or dedicated to virtual machine migration.

What is DCB? Data Center Bridging encompasses a set of IEEE standards that enable storage networking over Ethernet, often referred to as lossless Ethernet. This includes something called Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) that affords the ability to have lossless, consistent, reliable storage I/O while sharing the same network with other IP traffic, regardless of LAN traffic conditions. When combined with iSCSI hardware offload, versus traditional software offload, the end result is better CPU efficiency and better network performance, resulting in an improved user experience.

What is UMC? Universal Multi-Channel allows multiple PCI functions to be created on each adapter port. Bandwidth can be allocated to multiple NIC functions as well as iSCSI or Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) functions. UMC is compatible with any 10GbE switch and is transparent to operating systems. I know you are thinking, “What, bandwidth allocation?” You betcha – specified as a percent of total bandwidth all the way to 10Gb. Think of the flexibility and management possibilities. It is here folks. Your customers will enjoy knowing that their networking backbone is reliable and enterprise-class fast.

Check out the press release for more highlights on what benefits your customers gain from the enhancements we’ve made to Emulex OneConnect UCNAs.

Your friends here at Emulex will continue to be your resource for information on 10GbE connectivity and converged networking. We are proud to have you as a trusted partner and we value your relationship. If you have a question or would like to hear more, drop us a comment here or you can email us directly at reseller@emulex.com.

That’s it for this time. Have fun and happy selling!

Marc

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Last week was a fantastic one for Emulex. Our channel team was in downtown Denver for a full week of festivities and events around CRN’s XChange Americas conference. The team did a ton of planning and preparation, so by the time we kicked off the events a week ago, we were chomping at the bit to get started.

On Tuesday, we debuted our 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) Summit with over 40 resellers and service providers in attendance. We spent day one discussing 10GbE market opportunities in general, including valuable 10GbE solutions discussions with partners LSI and Nexenta. Day two featured a discussion around 10GbE cloud selling strategies, an overview of Emulex OneConnect products and an outline of the CRN 5 Star Award-winning Connect Partner Program before sitting down to an engaging set of roundtables, where I think our new friends and Emulex learned a little (a lot!) about each other. I can tell you it was personally very helpful hearing from channel partners firsthand as to what helps them be successful and how Emulex can help them gain that success.

We ended our two days with a send-off from John Alfieri, vice president of sales, thanking our soon-to-be 40 newest Connect partners. And just as quickly as it started, the 10Gb Summit was over. Our group was off to begin their CRN XChange schedule.

But before you knew it, we had to get ready for XChange Americas ourselves…we were setting up our booth in the Solutions Pavilion of the Denver Convention Center and having one-on-one meetings with even more resellers. There was a packed schedule of events set for the week, and we had close to 300 resellers and service providers in town to soak it all up.

Day one ended that night after several hours talking to countless partners about Emulex 10GbE and other solutions, the Connect Partner Program and what’s coming next. We awoke to find that several of our Emulex team had gotten our “action shots” into XChange Daily Newsletter. Judi Uttal, Jeff Johnson, Howard Lo and I all had our faces in light as they graced the event newsletter’s pages.

The Emulex team had accomplished so much in such a short period of time: It was now just Wednesday! Now it was time for our boardroom session with a few dozen folks. Ever try to explain your company, a market opportunity, your products AND a reseller program in 20 minutes? We somehow managed and enjoyed every minute of it. I think our friends did too. At the end of another week in a hotel room, we packed up and went home, our first annual 10GbE Summit and the XChange events a success.

While I am sure everyone enjoys the fun of digging out of a week-deep e-mail hole, my morning turned decidedly better seeing that Emulex was voted XChange Americas’ Best Breakthrough Technology Vendor by the attendees. Thanks to all, especially the resellers we spoke to, who made the week so good.

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It’s no secret that the 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) market is taking off as the data center ecosystem continues to evolve. This is especially true among the core of networking, storage and service providers. The market opportunity for the channel is also significant and for this reason, we are kicking off our first Emulex 10GbE Summit in tandem with the XChange Americas Conference in Denver. The Emulex 10GbE Summit will be held August 9-10 in Denver at the Hyatt Regional/Denver Convention Center with more than 30 attendees. CRN XChange is from August 10 – 13.

We have some great presentations and roundtables planned for the 10GbE Summit and XChange. If you’re going to XChange and are a solution provider or VAR, we welcome you to join us at the Summit, or we hope to see you at XChange (we’re in booth #310).

Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re planning:

• The Market Opportunity for 10GbE: There will be several sessions on day one focused on the opportunities for VARs selling Emulex 10GbE solutions, 10GbE cloud solution selling strategies, and several new opportunities with partners Nextenta and LSI.
• Emulex 10GbE Solutions, Roadmap and Go to Market: Day two will feature several sessions on our 10GbE product portfolio, competitive differentiators, updates on the Emulex Connect Partner Program and Connect+ designation, sales cycle incentives and training.
• XChange breakout session, iPads and demonstrations: Once the 10GbE Summit concludes, we’ll be at XChange in booth #310, raffling off an iPad, and participating in a boardroom session on Thursday at 2 pm. We hope you join us!

If you’re going to XChange, we hope to see you there. To contact us to learn more about Emulex or to hook up at the show, email reseller@emulex.com. And don’t forget to follow us @Emulex on Twitter for updates, pictures and more from the show.

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