IBM's Virtual Fabric Architecture for BladeCenter

IBM BladeCenter Delivers up to 43 Percent System Bandwidth Advantage Over HP BladeSystem

Today IBM introduced 'Virtual Fabric Architecture,' new interconnect technologies and management tools for the BladeCenter H system, to help increase speed and efficiency of data transfer across blade servers and networks. IBM Virtual Fabric Architecture has enabled IBM BladeCenter to deliver up to 43 percent system bandwidth advantage over HP BladeSystem for customers.

The explosion of new consumer technologies such as Web 2.0, IPTV, and online gaming, and business technologies such as quad-core processing and virtualization, are driving the need for high bandwidth interconnect technologies to move data traffic across high capacity networks. Introduced less than a year ago, IBM BladeCenter H is a high performance system that delivers the increased bandwidth needed by providing businesses up to 10 times the capacity to move data across their networks.

To help unleash the power inherent in the BladeCenter H design to further support such cutting edge technologies and applications, IBM is working with partners to introduce its Virtual Fabric Architecture with technologies including:

- Nortel 10G Ethernet Switch from BLADE Network Technologies and NetXen 10G Ethernet Expansion Card: An industry first complete solution with 10G Ethernet connectivity directly to a blade server from IBM's collaboration with BLADE Network Technologies and NetXen. The Nortel 10G Ethernet switch provides the highest levels of connectivity and ensures optimal throughput between each BladeCenter server in a system and to the network core. The NetXen10G expansion card provides high-performance, cost effective connectivity for the blade. The solution offers breakthrough 10G Ethernet pricing, an order of magnitude less than other offerings in the industry.

- Cisco Embedded Fibre Channel Fabric Switch: An industry first, the new Cisco embedded switch will allow customers to deploy end-to-end Cisco intelligent SAN services, such as VSANs, advanced security, and high availability. The new Fibre Channel switch is the next phase in a series of collaborations in switching between IBM and Cisco, and expands the switching solution offerings to include Fibre Channel, Ethernet and InfiniBand options.

- QLogic Ethernet and Fibre Channel InfiniBand Bridge Modules: An industry first in conjunction with the Cisco 4X InfiniBand Switch Module provides gateway functions for one or more InfiniBand-connected group of BladeCenter H systems to external Gb Ethernet or Fibre Channel networks.

- IBM BladeCenter Address Manager: Allows for the I/O virtualization of Ethernet and Fibre Channel connections within a system by providing BladeCenter customers the option to assign Ethernet and Fibre Channel port addresses used by their server blades via software as an alternative to the addresses that are burned-in to the hardware during manufacturing.BladeCenter Address Manager also uniquely supports a variety of fabrics from IBM ecosystem partners.

- IBM Multi-Switch Interconnect Module (MSIM): Designed by IBM to help double the number of Fibre Channel or Gb Ethernet connections to each blade. MSIM fits into the high speed switch slots in BladeCenter H, supports the entire BladeCenter switch portfolio.

IBM offers the widest range of networking and storage switches than any other blade vendor, and has shipped more than two million one-Gigabit Ethernet ports to date. Today we extend that lead by delivering even more I/O solutions including the industry's first integrated 10-Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to a blade.
"IBM BladeCenter is the world's most popular blade computing system, with more than 42 percent share of the market according to IDC. Since its introduction in 2002, IBM has installed more than half a million BladeCenter systems for customers and maintained a durable infrastructure platform by delivering new technology advances that remain compatible with IBM's original design innovation," said Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive, IBM BladeCenter. "With today's announcement it is clear that IBM has uniquely architected all facets of I/O to work as a central nervous system for IBM BladeCenter, delivering the optimal interconnection between blades, chassis, switches and our client's external networks" - IBM.