Emulex Corporation has announced that its single-chip OneConnect Universal Converged Network Adapters (UCNAs) have been selected for 10Gb/s Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity for the Cisco Unified Computing B-Series Blade Server platform, Cisco Unified Computing C-Series Rack Mount Server platform and qualified for use with the Nexus family of Unified Fabric Switches. Emulex FCoE connectivity is enhancing the Cisco Unified Fabric and Unified Computing Solutions by reducing network complexity, installation and maintenance costs, while optimizing performance by delivering full hardware offload protocol support for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and FCoE. Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) are also available for use with the Cisco Unified Computing C-Series Rack Servers.

"The adoption of 10Gb/s Ethernet is enabling network convergence. Working in conjunction with Cisco Unified Computing Solutions and Nexus platforms, Emulex's OneConnect UCNAs are helping customers build next-generation data center infrastructures that unify their Ethernet and Fibre Channel architectures," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "Emulex is the first company to announce and ship integrated network convergence at every level of the data center, from Universal Local Area Network on Motherboards (ULOMs) that provide 'chip-down' network convergence, integrated blade mezzanine cards to reduce I/O footprint, and standard PCI Express adapters that provide new levels of data center consolidation."

The Emulex OneConnect UCNA architecture works in concert with the Cisco Unified Computing Solutions and Nexus platforms, allowing IT administrators to streamline and eliminate repeated administrative tasks such as server and network provisioning with a "wire once" deployment model. This allows companies to efficiently consolidate network and storage infrastructures without changing management domains, thus reducing their operational costs and increasing operational efficiency.

Emulex's single-chip, high-performance OneConnect UCNAs and OneConnect ULOMs provide the world's fastest 10Gb/s Ethernet performance*; are the only server I/O solutions with full hardware protocol offload support for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol TCP/IP, Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) and FCoE; and the ability to efficiently consolidate network and storage infrastructures without changing management domains. As part of the Emulex vEngine technology, hardware offload and acceleration reduces server overhead and increases the number of virtual machines that can run on virtualized servers.

In addition, Emulex OneConnect UCNAs, OneConnect ULOMs and LightPulse Fibre Channel HBAs utilize Emulex's OneCommand Manager for secure, virtualized, automated and centralized enterprise management for deployment, dynamic provisioning, asset management, virtual I/O services, connectivity management, security, and quality of service for virtualized and converged networking environments.

Emulex will be showcasing its new Cisco-branded and qualified OneConnect connectivity solutions at its booth #1060 this week at Cisco Live 2010 in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Resort.