INDUSTRY

NetXen, Inc. today announced that its NetXen Intelligent NIC network controllers have been integrated into HP ProLiant multifunction 10-Gigabit Ethernet network adapters. Based on NetXen's high-performance Intelligent NX2031 NIC, the HP Multifunction Network Adapters can deliver up to a ten-fold increase in network I/O bandwidth compared to existing Gigabit solutions. The HP NC510C and NC510F Network Adapters for the HP ProLiant portfolio of servers support CX4 copper and SR fiber connections, respectively. They are capable of supporting a variety of protocols, including RDMA, TCP/IP and accelerated iSCSI, thus enabling the consolidation of heterogeneous network traffic over 10-Gigabit Ethernet links. David Pulling, president of NetXen, said, "We have been collaborating closely with HP to bring 10-Gigabit Ethernet to the mainstream server market. This announcement marks an inflection point in the widespread adoption of 10-Gigabit Ethernet, highlighting that the evolution toward the converged, agile, secure enterprise network of the future has truly begun. Our joint work has delivered a robust, scalable, upgradeable, enterprise-class 10-Gigabit networking solution." "With 10-Gigabit Ethernet-enabled HP ProLiant servers, enterprises can increase performance while simplifying their IT operations," said Paul Perez, vice president, Storage, Networking and Infrastructure, Industry Standard Servers, HP. "We chose to use the NetXen Intelligent NIC controller for HP ProLiant 10-Gigabit Ethernet adapters because this technology provides a powerful and flexible I/O architecture. We expect the adapters to dramatically increase server scalability while optimizing server architecture for virtual deployments." "Customers have been excited about 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) technology, but they have not been sure about how to start deploying it," said Jean S. Bozman, research vice president in IDC's Global Enterprise Solutions group. "HP is one of the largest players in the x86 server market worldwide and thus has a significant influence in driving market trends and adoption of new technologies. The availability of 10-Gigabit Ethernet for the widely shipped ProLiant family should appeal to IT managers looking to scale-out their server configurations with next-generation I/O technology." The use of 10-Gigabit Ethernet Multifunction Adapters in HP servers positions 10-Gigabit Ethernet to be a unifying technology for flexible and scalable data networks for applications ranging from high-performance computing to storage systems to mainstream data center servers. The flexibility of the HP Multifunction 10-Gigabit Network Adapters as a single unifying I/O technology for networking, clustering and storage applications is economically attractive because it reduces management and support costs. Now network bandwidth can be shared and allocated between LAN, SAN and cluster traffic for improved server efficiency and network flexibility.