SCIENCE

Virtensys has expanded its product offerings with the introduction of the VIO-4004, a high-performance I/O virtualization system that consolidates and virtualizes network connectivity to a rack of servers and provides up to 80 Gbps of sustained Ethernet bandwidth per server. The VIO-4004 increases the performance of virtualized environments to unprecedented levels by providing servers and Virtual Machines with the highest connectivity bandwidth while minimizing the server I/O processing overhead. With this new announcement, Virtensys raises the bar and enables traditional, as well as “hard-to-virtualize” applications to run much more efficiently in virtualized environments while reducing the I/O costs and power consumption by more than 50 percent compared to traditional I/O deployments. Virtensys will demonstrate the VIO-4004 incorporating the Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520 family at VMworld 2010, booth #1431, in San Francisco, Calif.

Virtensys I/O virtualization products convert servers to high-performance and stateless compute nodes that can be seamlessly interconnected by pooling, consolidating and abstracting servers’ I/O resources and state. The VIO-4000 series (including the VIO-4004) allows IT managers to wire servers once and then dynamically reconfigure them at will with different state and I/O profiles based on applications’ needs. With the VIO-4000 series, IT administrators can now deploy stateless computing in their environments using industry-standard servers and operating systems, enabling organizations to create private or public clouds using a platform-neutral approach and without requiring forklift upgrades to their data centers or being locked-into a single vendor’s proprietary solutions.

“Providing 80 Gbps of sustained bandwidth to servers in a rack, along with the capability to deliver line rate connectivity to VMs creates a unique combination that unleashes the performance of virtualized servers and cloud infrastructures across a variety of vertical market segments,” said Ahmet Houssein, president and CEO at Virtensys. “The VIO-4004 comes on the heel of the tremendous successes we have seen with the VIO-4000 series. Our solutions offer IT mangers an unprecedented flexibility in deploying stateless computing with on-demand network and storage connectivity to servers while substantially reducing management expenses, as well as I/O costs and power consumption.”

The VIO-4004 virtualizes up to four Intel Ethernet X520 dual-port 10 GbE adapters and provides servers with line-rate access to the network. It enables the servers to simultaneously use and share the adapters. “It is exciting to see the Virtensys VIO-4004 system support the Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520 family,” said Darryl Rakestraw, director of customer marketing, LAN Access Division, Intel Corporation. "Aggregating multiple Intel 10GbE adapters in this manner offers customers a cost-effective way to deliver up to 80 Gbps of bandwidth to each rack-based server while maintaining Intel’s outstanding virtualization I/O performance."

Virtualized operating systems leverage the capabilities of I/O virtualization to further improve data center operations and cloud infrastructures. “The VIO-4004 complements VMware vSphere™ 4.1 and helps customers achieve higher performance and greater flexibility, manageability and efficiency in their IT infrastructure and cloud deployments,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “By increasing bandwidth and I/O at the virtual machine level, the Virtensys solution helps ensure that applications receive the resources they require to perform at the highest levels.”

“With budgets under pressure and the need to quickly migrate to a more flexible IT infrastructure, CIOs continuously need to improve data center agility, enhance performance and reduce capital expenditures and power consumption without disrupting their existing processes,” said Joe Skorupa research VP at Gartner. “I/O virtualization solutions have the potential to allow organizations to run traditional and cloud-based applications more efficiently.”