Emulex Blog: Market Mantras

Emulex and Endace: Solving the challenges of increased network performance and scalability

Posted March 25th, 2013 by Shaun Walsh

As we integrate Endace into the Emulex product portfolio, I wanted to share with you what our combined solutions will solve in today’s data center.
Emulex and Endace: True end-to-end Network Performance Management solution
Emulex and Endace are both leaders in the 10/40/100Gb Ethernet (100GbE) markets, and with this experience we are finding and solving the challenges of increased network performance and scalability sooner and better than others in the market, because we are there first to encounter the new challenges facing cloud and enterprise data centers at these network speeds. Together, we will be able to provide the only true end-to-end Network Performance Management (NPM) solution because we are the only company to combine and integrate Ethernet end points and network path visibility into a single NPM infrastructure. Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) provided by Emulex enable visibility into the application-level that was previously unavailable to the Endace NPM appliances, and in turn, the Endace NPM appliances provide visibility into the network path that was not visible to the CNA end points, this gap prohibited true end-to-end application performance visibility and acceleration. Together we can now see the source, path and delivery of applications at every level of the network for cloud, telco and enterprise data centers.

This will help IT shops in four ways:

Improved Application Performance – We can now use our end points and network performance management appliances to show where the network is affecting delivery of applications and use our end point drivers to provide the only true application-level insight that will optimize configuration and transport of data over networks.
Faster Execution for High Performance Computing (HPC), Big Data and Server Virtualization – By combining the Endace NPM appliances with Emulex’s next generation of CNA technology, which includes embedded virtual switching support, we can help accelerate next generation applications that heavily depend on east-west traffic between servers in the same rack or cluster. Our flexible driver model and NPM traffic monitoring provide the ability to optimize the traffic inside racks and clusters to improve low latency application delivery for HPC (such as High Frequency Trading), faster sorting of big data for analytics and improved service level agreements (SLAs) by reducing transfer time of virtual machines across physical servers.
Open Dock Appliance – The Endace appliance has the ability to host third party applications, enabling IT managers work continue to work with their preferred software partner, but gain the benefits of 100 percent network monitoring. The open architecture and integration model of Endace appliances and industry standard drivers of CNAs provided by Emulexcreate a flexible and adaptable model for IT managers.
Integration with SDN (Software Defined Networking) – Both Endace and Emulex have been active participants in the SDN and OpenStack management markets and we will use our combined software and management tools to deliver integrated and flexible solutions for software defined data centers.

Paradigm shifts are often solved by companies with a new perspective and we believe we have the right solutions to meet the changing needs and demands of the networking market today and in the future.

Tags: 100GbE, 10Gb Ethernet, 10GbE, acquisition, Converged Network Adapters, Endace, integration, Network Performance Management, NPM, SDN, software defined networking
Posted in Customers, Industry, Security, Technology | No Comments

Wild Wiki West

Posted February 5th, 2010 by Shaun Walsh

Today, we had the Wikibon FCoE Fact vs. Fiction Peer Insight call with a great panel of industry bloggers and the Wikibon team, including Dave Vellante, Dennis Martin, Stuart Miniman, David Graham and Nigel Poulton, as well as a virtual cast of thousands. The core question of the day was: how do we separate the hype and reality of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) for the data center today? In listening to the panel and the guest on the call, I came away with three key lessons:

FCoE is coming to market and we better get ready. Yes, Fibre Channel will be strong for a number of years. 2010 is the year to do some pilots, and the Wikibon S-curve says 2011 and 2012 will be the point of obvious transition due to cost savings.
Vendors have to do a better job defining the value proposition. As a vendor, we need to tone down some of the hype and provide a clear value proposition in numbers and dollars. We are going to work with Wikibon on a calculator and planning tool to make the value proposition clear.
We need to provide a better understanding of how companies can get rid of stuff. Saving cash is not enough: make it simple by getting rid of extra gear. We need to do a better job of explaining what can go and how to transition with minimal fuss and headaches. Consolidation needs to come to networks, just like servers and storage.

I enjoyed the call, and I look forward to seeing how the market matures over the next six months. One thing is certain: we (vendors) don’t know as much as we think. The job of bringing FCoE to market is just beginning. Click here to listen to this discussion through the Wikibon audio archives.

Posted in Environmental, Industry, Technology | No Comments

Taking Aim at the Target

Posted November 20th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

Screen shot 2009-11-20 at 10.38.09 AM With all of the focus on the host side with the announcement of general availability for our OneConnect Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) and the industry’s first 16Gb Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) design, we can’t forget about the other side of the networking equation: the target side. After all, without RAID, tape, virtual tape library (VTL), deduplication and hundreds of other target devices, we wouldn’t have a complete solution. Over the past month, Emulex had announced some key solutions for the target side that include our new TargetConnect product and Quad-Port 8Gb Fibre Channel HBA.

Emulex TargetConnect

The Emulex TargetConnect™ Software Developer Kit (SDK) provides the flexibility to quickly develop and deploy target-side solutions based on Emulex Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) CNA target or initiator mode drivers. The TargetConnect SDK makes it fast and simple to support network and storage appliances, test and diagnostics applications, VTL, RAID, deduplication and more.
Continue reading…

Tags: TargetConnect
Posted in Technology | No Comments

QLogic’s Cool HBA Technology Gets Some New Bling… a Heat Sink

Posted November 3rd, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

Always the technology fashionistas, QLogic has added some “bling” to its new 8Gb/s quad-port Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA) (QLE2564) – two shiny new heat sinks. “Heat sinks?” we asked. You can only imagine our surprise! For the past 18 months, QLogic has been touting its “Cool HBA Technology.” The theory of this highly touted feature was that QLogic 8Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs did not need a heat sink for reliable operation, but thermal images, such as those below, show that they really do:

qlogic_compared

What is most surprising about this sudden shift is that it took QLogic so long to catch up with the design best practices which Emulex and the rest of the industry have been leveraging since the beginning.

The fact remains that heat sinks are vital to achieving enterprise class reliability and are one of the best ways to cool devices in today’s high-density computing environments. As you can see in the images below, it has taken QLogic over 18 months to truly achieve its “Cool HBA Technology,” and even then, only after following Emulex’s lead.

qlogic_compared2

So why is cooler better? It’s simple. Cooler operating adapters mean greater reliability – of significant importance to data center administrators, as properly cooled components have a longer operating life, better system reliability and greater Storage Area Network (SAN) availability, each critical considerations in blade server environments. The cooler operating Emulex 8Gb/s Fibre Channel I/O controller translates into 166% greater reliability when compared to QLogic’s QLE2562 HBA.

The real question QLogic customers and partners have to be asking now is “what about all those QLogic 8Gb/s cards in the field which have no heat sink?”

To learn more, check out the following:

Emulex Labs: Sometimes, Being Hot Isn’t So Cool: http://www.emulex.com/emulexlabs/?p=14

The Effects of Heat on Electronic Circuits and Devices: http://www.youtube.com/EmulexVideo#play/uploads/17/AQOaNX9C6JE

Tags: Competition, Environmental, green, qlogic
Posted in Competition, Environmental, Technology | No Comments

Sweet 16Gb: Long Live Fibre Channel

Posted October 30th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

Screen shot 2009-10-30 at 9.20.55 AM With all the talk about network convergence this week, you might be thinking that we have forgotten about Fibre Channel. No way! This month, the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) ratified the 16Gb Fibre Channel standard, and this week, we announced the industry’s first 16Gb design win with our long-time partner, IBM p Series.

Fibre Channel Market Muscle

According to the Dell Oro Group, Fibre Channel will be a $675 million market by 2013, so it is not going anywhere. Why? Installed base and investment protection is a key factor, but it goes beyond that. Fibre Channel is one of the proven cornerstones of the data center, and IT managers will not just abandon a proven solution. Fibre Channel will be a dominant storage interconnect as a standalone transport or encapsulated in FCoE for at least another decade.

The Powers of 2

1, 2, 4, 8 and now 16Gb. Fibre Channel continues to move forward, and yes, 32Gb is on the FCIA roadmap as well. Each generation of Fibre Channel has followed a power of 2 and shows no sign of stopping. Here are some details from the press release: ”The Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) ANSI INCITS T11 committee completed the technical work on the FC-PI-5 for 16Gb/s Fibre Channel (“16GFC”) and voted in early October to send the document out for letter ballot. This milestone marks the technical stability and completeness necessary for vendors to commit to silicon their upcoming designs based upon the FC-PI-5 standard…” This is exactly what IBM and Emulex have done with our announcement this week.

As you would expect, 16Gb Fibre Channel users will experience twice the bandwidth of 8Gb Fibre Channel, and like previous generations of Fibre Channel, 16Gb Fibre Channel will auto-negotiate backward compatibly to 8Gb Fibre Channel and 4Gb Fibre Channel. 16Gb Fibre Channel provides a natural migration path from 8/4Gb Fibre Channel and ensures the end-user full confidence that 8Gb Fibre Channel purchases made today are preserved investments for tomorrow.

16Gb Fibre Channel will provide more virtual ports to improved efficiencies with high-density multi-core CPUs, improve single-root hypervisors support, improve IOPS for solid state disk drives and make way for third-generation PCI Express (PCIe) bus architectures and shared I/O deployments. Additional information on the standardization efforts of 16Gb Fibre Channel is available at the ANSI T11 Web site: www.t11.org.

How Do We Reconcile Support for Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet via Network Convergence?

Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) are complementary, not competitive. Fibre Channel is a core part of network convergence. By supporting the latest innovations in Fibre Channel, we are enabling network convergence and advancing tools that will help us build better, more flexible and more powerful FCoE implementations for 10GbE and 40GbE in the future.

Yes, Emulex is a strong advocate of network convergence. We see network convergence and FCoE as a market expansion opportunity, not a market replacement. We started this blog by saying Fibre Channel will be a big market for many years to come, and we plan to keep growing in our core Fibre Channel markets.

Tags: fcoe, fibre channel, network, networking
Posted in Industry, Technology, convergence | No Comments

Network Convergence Starts with the Right 10GbE NIC/CNA

Posted October 19th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

thehulk Network convergence is changing the lowly Network Interface Card (NIC) into a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) superhero. How is this humble workhorse of the data center becoming such a strategic element with incredible superpowers? Two words: Enhanced Ethernet. Much like getting exposed to the right gamma rays, Ethernet is now imbued with the powers of IP networking – NAS, ISCSI, RDMA and Fibre Channel in a single wire (or optical cable, as the case may be).

However, given all of these powers, choosing a 10GbE NIC is not as simple as it used to be. Here is a list of things to look for in your next 10GbE NIC or CNA:

1. Network Convergence-ready 10GbE

2. Field Upgradable Protocols

3. High Performance with Hardware Acceleration

4. Full Hardware Protocol Offload-capable

5. Unified and Integrated Management

6. Enterprise Reliability

Choosing the right 10GbE infrastructure is a critical decision. Make sure as you choose your NIC/CNA option that it has the right superpowers to deliver the converged network you are looking for now and in the future.

Tags: cnas, convergence, network, nic
Posted in Technology, convergence | No Comments

The Five W’s of Network Convergence: Who, What, When, Where and Why

Posted October 13th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

There had seemed to be a lull in the blogosphere and Twitterverse about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) for a few weeks, and then, just as you would expect it would, traffic cranked back up as the fall tradeshow season roared into high gear. It has been a busy past few weeks trying to answer the classic five W’s (who, what, when, where and why) about FCoE and network convergence. As we all know, when we have a lack of real data, the speculation can sometimes get wild and wooly.

Here is Emulex’s take on the five W’s:

Who

That is fairly simple, as at this point, the answer would seem to be everyone. Everyone of the major server, storage, operating system (OS), hypervisor and storage vendors have announced support of network convergence in 2009. This includes IBM, HP, Sun, Dell, EMC, Brocade, Cisco (Nexus and UCS), Emulex, QLogic, Intel, Broadcom, Juniper, VMware, Solaris, Microsoft, Red Hat, Novell and more.

This list marks a Who’s Who of the enterprise market. These organizations are creating the tools, systems, solutions and support required for IT managers to begin the process of testing vendor claims and putting pilots into the data center.

What

What is required for network convergence to become a reality? It is the confluence of virtualization, which drives I/O aggregation; Nehalem EX CPUs and chips, which set optimization for 10GbE bandwidths; blade servers leveraging 10GbE for mid-planes; and enhanced Ethernet, which addresses the needs of storage and high-performance computing (HPC) performance on a common physical layer. No one single thing of those listed above would move network convergence from concept to reality, but together, these items will, because it makes economic sense, leverages core IT capabilities and has the right problems to solve at the right time. These key problems are lowering the CAPEX cost of IT, increasing compute density to reduce OPEX (power, cooling, rack space, cabling) and simplifying IT to lower management overhead.

When

From the Emulex perspective, we have completed some of the major technology and ecosystem development steps over the past few years:

2008 – The year of driving standards and first-generation products, where, as an industry, we completed proof-of-concept products, performed initial technology demonstrations and built value propositions for our customers.
2009 – The year of OEM and ecosystem qualifications, as second-generation products have moved into the mainstream and OEMS are selecting their go-to-market partners and ecosystem partners, who will build turn-key solutions for IT. As this level of work is completed, IT managers can begin to look at implementing projects based on tools, equipment and services from their chosen IT vendors.
2010 – The year of validation, IT pilots and testing. IT managers will be able to put network convergence to the test and see if it really works for them. We obviously expect it will, after which it will become budgeted for the future.
2011-2014 – 2011 will be the first real year of deployment as IT managers replace equipment installed in the 2007-08 timeframe that has been fully amortized. This will mark the beginning of a three- to four-year transition that should set the stage for cloud computing and 40GbE network convergence.

Where

Where will this occur first? The service providers (Web 2.0, financials, telco, IT services, X as a service) will be first, as they need to lower infrastructure costs while also increasing scalability and flexibility in their architectures. For many of these service providers, who provide back-end services related to networking, consolidating on 10GbE with enhanced Ethernet makes simple sense. They can provide easily provisioned bandwidth for each class of networking on a common infrastructure. This isn’t to say that all IT shops can’t benefit from this type of capability, but service providers drive direct savings, profits and revenue from this model and will be the most common early adopters of network convergence.

Why

As we all know, IT vendors are quick to embrace new computing models, while IT professionals tend to be a bit more skeptical for many reasons. Network convergence is going to be driven first by 10GbE, and that transition is tied to the next generations of Nehalem EX servers running extensive server virtualization, which drive 10GbE to the LOM, 10GbE for virtual I/O and create blade servers to native 10GbE on the mid-plane. Clearly this transition has started this year, with HP Virtual Connect, IBM’s Virtual Fabric, EMC and NetApp announcing 10GbE iSCSI and FCoE support. As 10GbE becomes the basis of IT and the capabilities of enhanced Ethernet are added, network convergence will become a natural outcropping of the 10GbE transition. While network convergence is driven by the core of capitalism, it will lower costs, raise revenues, create efficient economies of scale and deliver a competitive advantage for those who implement it ahead of the market.

Posted in Industry, Technology, convergence | No Comments

Big Brother Speaks and Says Emulex Is Right About FCoE

Posted August 4th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

In May, IDC released their 2009 Storage Networking Infrastructure 2009-2013 Forecast – Server Slow Down Stifles FC HBAs and Switch Sales, while Laying the Ground Work for FCoE and 10GbE. That title is quite a mouthful, but I think we can eat this elephant one bite at a time and find some interesting directional vectors from this report. As a marketing professional, I love data from analysts that can help validate our fundamental suppositions of the market and can be used to create collateral, press, sales tools and positioning that says both that “we were right” and “our strategy is the right one.” After all, that is what marketing people get paid to do. We are supposed to anticipate where the market is going and help guide our customers, companies and partners to continued growth and opportunity. No, we don’t always get it right, but when it comes to network convergence with Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) over 10Gb/s Enhanced Ethernet, Emulex is no doubt very close to on-target.

Here are a few of my favorite tidbits from our friends at IDC:

IDC Quote	Emulex Thoughts
“Finally, the end of 2008 saw the first tangible steps toward the introduction of FCoE, a new technology for easing network consolidation in datacenters. These steps included finalizing the FCoE standard, announcements of the first FCoE CNAs, 10GE switches with FCoE support, and the first FCoE-attached arrays.”*	As the saying goes, “it takes a village”-or, in the IT industry, an ecosystem to support a major technology transition. The support is there from every key OEM and alliance vendor Emulex works with. Now we need to get the channels ready.
“It is also critical that FC infrastructure suppliers begin to rethink direct sales, channel sales, and services strategies as they develop their next-generation storage interconnect solutions.”*	Emulex is working with our OEM, channel and alliance partners to build new programs and solutions. We are prepared with all of the essential tools, such as our Convergenomics™ The Guide to Network Convergence Solutions, which we first delivered in April, for building a new breed of convergence networking VARs that bring IP networking and storage networking into a single domain.
” Over the next five years, the critical challenges for storage interconnect suppliers will be to establish market leadership positions in the emerging markets for FCoE and 10GbE infrastructure. While broad adoption won’t start until 2011, late 2010 is when companies are likely to start making major architectural decisions.”*	We agree that major OEMs will announce products in late Q4 and early 2010, and IT managers will evaluate and pilot projects in the second and third quarters of 2010 with real deployments occurring in late 2010 or early 2011.
“Beyond the current economic difficulties, the emergence of cloud computing and new approaches to datacenter deployments based on a highly specialized or virtualized design promise to create new disruptions in storage interconnect requirements.”*	We have already given a number of presentations at key industry events and have many more coming up about how the cloud, network convergence and Emulex are aligned to create universal access to block-, file- and object-based data.
“IDC expects accelerated deployment of FCoE CNAs (market revenue for these products will approach $340 million in 2012).”*	This market is real and network convergence is going to be key technology for data centers as 10Gb/s Ethernet blade computing comes to the forefront of deployments over the next two years.

It is easy to be cynical about predictions for the future as many people have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Other companies may place bets on both sides and don’t care which one wins. Still others need the future to be different to win. Emulex is fortunate in that we have we strong bets on both the current Fibre Channel and the upcoming converged network markets. So, do we really care if this transition happens? You bet. Network convergence is about all kinds of networking (IP, storage and clustering) and it will be the key directional vector for not only us, but our entire industry, to follow for the next decade. As IDC said in their title,”…while Laying the Ground Work for FCoE and 10GbE,” we are working with OEMs, channel partners and ecosystem partners to move from groundwork to constructing the converged networking future.

*IDC, 2009 Storage Networking Infrastructure 2009-2013 Forecast – Server Slow Down Stifles FC HBAs and Switch Sales, while Laying the Ground Work for FCoE and 10GbE, doc #218480, May/2009

Tags: ethernet, fcoe, idc, statistics
Posted in Industry, Technology | No Comments

Are There Eight Reasons to Move to 8Gb/s Now?

Posted July 30th, 2009 by Shaun Walsh

As most of you know, Fibre Channel transitions have typically been driven by
the availability of target devices such as redundant array of independent disks
(RAID), tape and virtual tape libraries (VTLs). The transitions to 8Gb will be
different. Let’s face it, we “marketing pukes” (my engineers tell me that is the
best name for my species) are always looking for angles to sell, position and
describe our value proposition to our markets. In 2009, it seems that the market
reality and the hype curve are converging for 8Gb/s Fibre Channel – so here are
my top eight reasons to move to 8Gb/s in 2009.

	Intel® Xeon® 5500 processors – This is the first generation of processors from Intel designed with server virtualization in mind. The use of PCI Express 2.0, Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) in virtualized server environments, Message-Signaled Interrupts eXtended (MSI-X) and Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology for bandwidth intensive applications are built to leverage the performance of 8Gb/s Fibre Channel.
	The Generation Gap – The reality is that not all data centers are built with generations of products that were purchased, built and designed together. The move to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel is also about avoiding a generational gap in your data center. Why run a system loaded-up with Xeon 5500 processors with a 4Gb/s Fibre Channel card not built to maximize and leverage your other investments? It would be like adding too much horse power to a car without also upgrading the transmission, brakes, tires and suspension. You will never be able to realize the benefits of the power.
	Consolidation and Budget Cuts – This is not another attempt at deriving return on investment (ROI) rationalizations or green guilt. It is about doing more with less. If you move to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel now, you can use fewer Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and switches to connect your servers, blades and clusters to storage. In the end, this will save on power, cooling, cables and rack space, which is great, but for the bottom-line folks out there, you also get more juice with less of a squeeze. It’s that simple.
	Resistance Is Futile – You know this transition is coming, and if you don’t move now, you could be taking the risk of being stuck with out-of-date gear, services issues and end-of-life issues before your new server reaches its end-of-life. No one wants to spend the time to upgrade HBAs in the field, and it is much better to make the move now.
	Virtualization Aggregation – According to IDC, the number of virtual machines (VMs) per server is expected to triple with the roll-out of Xeon 5500 processors. This means you will need three times the I/O performance, and if you know you are going to need it over the lifecycle of you new computer processing units (CPUs), it will cost less in the end to move to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel now rather than upgrading later.
	Business Continuity and Service Level Agreements – When it comes to business continuity and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), less time spent moving data is a big win. Moving to 8Gb/s Fibre Channel reduces back-up and data migration windows, which provides greater availability of business applications, and helps to improve productivity and the organization’s bottom line.
	Investment Protection – 8Gb/s Fibre Channel is backward-compatible with 2Gb/s and 4Gb/s Fibre Channel. This means you can chose 8Gb/s now for your future while also protecting the past. Emulex HBAs are fully backward compatible with your 2 and 4Gb/s Fibre Channel installed base and feature one common driver across all Emulex HBAs.
	The Target Devices Are Shipping – Finally, the targets are shipping from HP, EMC, NetApp and many others. They are not really the drivers this time, but they help complete the story and provide a nice symmetry to the implementation.

In the technology business, hype curves are often many
years ahead of reality, and for 8Gb/s Fibre Channel, this was also true. But
now, in 2009, the time for 8Gb/s Fibre Channel to transition into the realm of
reality has arrived. Continue reading…

Tags: cpu, ethernet, fc, fibre channel, intel, RAID, storage, vtl
Posted in Industry, Technology | No Comments

Emulex