Emulex unveils 10/40-GbE network adapters for virtualized, enterprise and cloud data centers

Emulex (NYSE: ELX) has unveiled its OneConnect OCe14000 family of 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet (10/40 GbE) network adapters and converged network adapters (CNAs) for virtualized, enterprise and cloud data centers.

Based on the next-generation Emulex Engine (XE) 100 series of I/O controllers, the company says the new adapters enable higher virtual machine (VM) densities, support secure hybrid clouds with Virtual Network Fabrics, leverage a new RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)-based low latency architecture to deliver application acceleration, and provide an open application performance interface (API) that integrates with next generation software-defined networking (SDN) solutions.

“We have purpose-built these adapters on a highly extensible platform that can be optimized for the demands of enterprise, cloud and telco applications,” comments Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “We are providing a new way to optimize the deployment of new Web-scale applications, virtualized environments and software-defined infrastructures, with the ability to scale performance in three dimensions; higher bandwidth, reduced latency and increased I/O operations per second (IOPS), to address the explosive growth of IP traffic and global storage.”

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According to Emulex, the OCe14000 family of Ethernet network adapters is optimized to meet the needs of enterprises, cloud providers and telcos, while delivering a powerful set of features and capabilities, including the following:

-- Enables High-Performance Virtualization: The OCe14000 uses highly efficient and scalable hardware offload technology to transfer the overhead of virtual networking which provides up to 50 percent better CPU utilization compared to standard NICs when used for VMware VirtualWire connection, thereby increasing the number of VMs supported per server. In addition, the OCe14000 delivers a fundamental 4x performance increase in small packet network performance2 required to scale transaction-heavy and clustered applications.

-- Offers Rapid, Secure and Scalable Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: Emulex says its Virtual Network Exceleration (VNeX) offload technology provides up to 70 percent better performance vs. software-only implementations of emerging Virtual Network Fabric standards. These may include Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE) used by Microsoft Hyper-V Network Virtualization and Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) used in VMware’s NSX, both employed to overcome the limitations of legacy data center networks by enabling flexible virtual workload mobility reducing deployment of VMs or network reconfiguration from days to minutes. When combined with Microsoft Dynamic VMQ or VMware NetQueue, the OCe14000 family of adapters provides the industry’s best platform for increasing VM density, contends Emulex.

-- Optimizes Application Delivery with Advanced RoCE Architecture: The OCe14000 is based on a low-latency RoCE architecture that helps enterprise IT and cloud data centers optimize applications delivery for VDI, big data, next generation NoSQL and in-memory databases, along with traditional enterprise IT workloads. The new adapters will support Windows Server SMB Direct and Linux NFS protocols.

-- Provides Open Enablement of Software-Defined Networking: Emulex is introducing a new SURF open API, providing the tools needed to implement SDN technology that can be optimized for next generation applications and new industry standards, such as OpenStack and OpenFlow.

-- Delivers Increased Block Protocol Performance: The OCe14000 increases total block protocol IOPS by 50 percent over previous generation CNAs2 and builds upon Emulex’s proven history of enterprise-class storage reliability.

The Emulex OCe14000 family is available now for ordering with shipments beginning this quarter for single- and dual-port 10GbE SFP+ models and single-port 40GbE QSFP+ models. Pricing starts at $448 MSRP.