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During the ve-year period from 2010 to 2015, network trafc

will quadruple to 4.8 zettabytes1, driven by network-critical

applications such as:

Worldwide Web

Cloud

Virtualization

Application Mobility

Big Data

High Availability

Network Storage

Network Back Up

Clustered Databases

Web 2.0

Overwhelming networking workloads, combined with applica-

tion-centric networking requirements, make network adapters

strategic. In fact, CIOs around the world are quickly realizing

how I/O can affect their IT budgets and overall business

success2

.

This paper outlines the Three Cs and how they impact I/O,

turning simple I/O into intelligent I/O.

Emulex Top 3 Reasons Why I/O is Strategic

At a Glance

Communication-critical applications are driving the amount of

I/O trafc to new heights, causing network trafc to grow

exponentially and affect your companys ability to perform at

its peak. This increase in trafc, and concern about controlling

costs while meeting service level requirements, has made

choosing Fibre Channel (FC) or Ethernet adapters a strategic

decision. Intelligent I/O solutions provided by Emulex address the

Three Cs impacted today: Cost, Continuity, Complexity.

This paper describes how you can implement intelligent I/O in

your data center as you focus on the Three Cs.

The Three Cs: Cost, Continuity, Complexity1. Cost:

Intelligent I/O lowers capital expenses (CAPEX) and operational

expenses (OPEX)

2. Continuity:

Intelligent I/O ensures availability and performance are at their peak

3. Complexity:

Intelligent I/O is cloud- and virtualization-aware, with future-proong

features for a converged network environment

With more than 30 years of I/O expertise, as evidenced by numerous

industry technology advancements (e.g., advanced virtualization

designs: N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) and Universal Multi-Channel

(UMC)), Emulex delivers intelligent I/O. Nine of the top ten tier 1

OEM server and storage providers resell strategic I/O solutions

provided by Emulex.

Emulex LightPulse

16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapters(HBAs) are high performing HBAs in virtualization environments with

key technologies like vEngine and vScale that ensure the highest

ratio of virtual machines (VMs) and virtual ports (vPorts) per server,

while GreenState technology lowers power and cooling costs.

1 Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010-20152 InformationWeek, Research: 2012 State of the Data Center, 5/31/12

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Emulex Top 3 Reasons Why I/O i s Strategic

Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) provided

by Emulex were the rst 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) adaptersto deliver protocol ofoad for a converged 10GbE network

environment, allowing iSCSI, FC over Ethernet (FCoE)

and TCP transmissions over a single network. Building

on decades of I/O expertise, Emulex now offers Network

Xceleration (NX) solutions for High Performance

Networks (HPNs) with OCe12000 10GbE adapters

and FastStack software. Together, they deliver high

throughput with low latency, jitter and CPU overhead.

CostIntelligent I/O solutions by Emulex can dramatically lower

overall costs. HBAs and UCNAs provided by Emulex ofoad

I/O processing. They operate much more efciently than a

generalized system processor, and are complementary to

the new power/performance efciency features of the IntelXeon E5-2600 product family. These adapters ofoad

protocol processing from the server operating software

stack, thus lowering the CPU load signicantly, and resulting

in far lower system power usage. This equates to lower

power and cooling costs. In fact, you could lower CAPEX

by purchasing a less expensive server with intelligent I/O

solutions provided by Emulex, giving you extra processing

power through the CPU-ofoad features.

HBAs and UCNAs provided by Emulex also lower OPEX

through OneCommand Manager, software for managing

all versions of adapters provided by Emulex, with a popular

VMware vCenter Server plug-in that allows adapter man-agement from the vCenter Server console. OneCommand

Manager delivers twice the management functionality in half

the time. With each adapter you deploy, it doesnt take as

long as competitors to install and manage it. With hundreds

of adapters, intelligent I/O is now strategic to getting more

done in less time.

Continuity

I/O is the lifeline to your business. Your applications need data, andthey need it fast and without any interruptions. Performance and

availability features are required elements in intelligent I/O. With 10

million hours Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Emulex leads the

industry in availability. Fibre Channel HBAs provided by Emulex deliver

up to one million input/output operations per second (IOPS) over a

single port for superfast storage I/O. Additionally, Emulex NX solutions

deliver industry-leading 10GbE performance for specic vertical

markets, such as High Frequency Trading (HFT), cyber/network

security and video on demand. You can imagine how fast I/O needs

to be for HFT markets think how this intelligent I/O can help your

business!

As your data center evolves, you need to ensure there are no I/Obottlenecks. Cloud computing results in a network scalability issue,

requiring new ways for VMs to talk to each other and migrate seam-

lessly. Emulex, Microsoft and other industry leaders have dened the

Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE),

or VXLAN, standard which enables an overlay (virtual) network, allow-

ing virtualized workloads to seamlessly communicate or move across

server racks, clusters and data centers. Overlay networking is another

example of why I/O is strategic. Adapters need to do so much more

than simple I/O in cloud environments.

To ensure you have no I/O bottlenecks across your servers, Emulex

OneCommand Vision is widely used to monitor application and storage

I/O performance. With automated alerts and advanced I/O problem-solving features, this software application shaves days, even weeks,

off the time your senior IT staff spends troubleshooting I/O issues. In

just ve minutes, OneCommand Vision can eliminate storage I/O as a

bottleneck! It complements Emulex intelligent I/O solutions by lowering

OPEX and CAPEX, while ensuring maximum application performance

and availability.

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World Headquarters 3333 Susan Street, Costa Mesa, California 92626 +1 714 662 5600

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Wokingham, United Kingdom +44 (0) 118 977 2929

www.emulex.com

ComplexityBefore cloud and virtualization architectures, I/O was a simple

plug-and-play solution. Today, data centers are so much more

complex, with intelligent I/O required, for example, to maxi-

mize how VMs carve up the available I/O. Reducing this com-

plexity with intelligent I/O features, such as support for UMC,allows the 10GbE pipe to be logically divided to facilitate the

half-dozen network interfaces required by todays hypervisors.

For FC, NPIV enables the virtualization of FC ports. NPIV is

supported by Emulex OEMs (e.g., HP with Virtual Connect,

IBM with Virtual Fabric) to comply with the requirements of

these OEM architectures, while reducing the complexity of

virtualization deployments.

Data centers today require solutions that are scalable, ex-

ible and high performing. Emulex OneCommand Manager

for VMware vCenter Server underscores the importance of

intelligent I/O by reducing the management time in a VMware

environment, ultimately reducing complexity and providing a

more scalable and exible I/O solution.

Future-proong the data center with each hardware purchase

is also critical to data centers that are moving to a converged

network. I/O is strategic as you plan your purchases with your

overall data center roadmap in front of you. Emulex under-

stands how I/O needs to change over time. With a single

converged network adapter that includes a pay-as-you-go

model for implementing different protocols, UCNAs pro-

vided by Emulex can be deployed today for TCP/IP I/O and

changed tomorrow for FCoE I/O. Investment protection is why

I/O is strategic!

As you make your next I/O purchasing decision, consider this: Emulex

recently announced the XE201 I/O controller that will deliver theindustrys rst PCIe 3.0 native 16GFC and 10GbE product, enabling

you to choose a combination of up to four ports of native 8 and

16GFC, FCoE, iSCSI, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), 10

and 40GbE for the ultimate in design exibility. Plan for the future

with Emulex intelligent I/O solutions.

Next step

I/O is strategic. Adapters and software provided by Emulex simplify

complexity through innovation, ensure continuity with enterprise prov-

en reliability and deliver performance based on application-specic

requirements. At the same time, adapters provided by Emulex control

costs through power efciency, ofoad techniques and enterprise

management applications.

Tier 1 OEMs, such as Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP and IBM,

choose FC and Ethernet adapters provided by Emulex for their

enterprise IT customers. Emulex is the worldwide 10GbE port

market share leader and is a dominant player in the FC HBA

market3. Emulex delivers a full line of intelligent I/O solutions that

meet the needs of data centers across the globe. Contact an Emulex

sales representative today to nd out more at sales@emulex.com.

3

3 Crehan Research, Server-class Adapter and LOM Market Share Report, May 2012

Some of these products may not be available in the U.S. Please contact your supplier for more information

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