Mellanox and Verari Systems Demonstrate InfiniBand Converged Wire Benefits in Server Blades With VMware

Business Wire, Sept 11, 2007

InfiniBand Delivers Unified Blade Server I/O and Seamless LAN/SAN Provisioning Using VMware Infrastructure Reducing I/O Cost Up to 50% and I/O Power Up to 30%

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mellanox[TM] Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) (TASE:MLNX), a leading supplier of semiconductor-based, server and storage interconnect products, today announced that a joint virtual infrastructure demonstration with Verari Systems[R] consisting of VMware Infrastructure, Verari Systems' BladeRack[R]2 blade server chassis and server blades, and native InfiniBand storage from LSI[R] using LSI's 6498 Storage System connected via Mellanox InfiniBand adapters, delivers compelling I/O cost and power benefits by replacing multiple Gigabit Ethernet NICs and Fibre Channel Adapters with a single Mellanox 20Gb/s InfiniBand adapter. This demonstration is a bellwether of the adoption of unified InfiniBand I/O in the rapidly growing virtualized data center market used to solve both cost and power issues in IT infrastructure, especially in blade server deployments.

"We expect the install-base of virtualized machines to heavily grow over the next five years, reaching 15 to 20 million by 2012 from the current number of an estimated 3 million(a)," said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. "The combination of multi-core CPU and blade server deployments, along with enhancements in virtualization software, will increase the need for higher bandwidth and unified I/O technologies."

InfiniBand-based virtualized blade servers incorporating Mellanox 20Gb/s adapters provide data centers with optimal total cost of ownership and the following features:

* Reduce I/O cost 40 - 50%

* Reduce I/O power ~30%

* Reduce I/O real estate needs in blade servers through I/O consolidation

* Maintain interoperability with existing LAN and SAN infrastructures

* Maintain compatibility with virtual machine-based applications and virtual infrastructure management software

"Virtualized environments require significant I/O resources per server to support the LAN and SAN connectivity needs of multiple virtual machines that run on each physical server," said Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "Mellanox solutions deliver true unified I/O using field-proven InfiniBand hardware and industry standard Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) based software, significantly reducing I/O related cost, power and eliminates cabling complexity."

The InfiniBand drivers for virtual infrastructure solutions based on VMware ESX Server are being developed as part of the VMware Community Source program. These OFED-based drivers ensure broad interoperability with the ecosystem of OEM, OSV, ISV suppliers of InfiniBand solutions. Legacy Ethernet NIC and SCSI HBA interfaces are preserved in the virtual machines enabling existing OS and applications qualified for VMs to run seamlessly over InfiniBand. Similarly, SAN and LAN I/O resource provisioning transparency is preserved.

"I/O resources in virtualized environments must be scaled with multi-core CPUs and with increasing the number of virtual machines without compromising the cost, power and space saving value propositions of blade servers," said David Driggers, CTO, Verari Systems. "This demo is a proof-point that IT Managers when deploying Verari's BladeRack 2 with virtual infrastructure solutions based on VMware Infrastructure and Mellanox's InfiniBand-based unified I/O solutions can gain new levels of virtualization performance and achieve higher levels of efficiency and utilization."

Visit Mellanox and Verari Systems at VMworld, September 11-13, Moscone Center

The virtual infrastructure solution based on VMware Infrastructure over InfiniBand demo can be viewed at the Verari booth (#108) during exhibit hours. Visit the Mellanox booth (#326) for additional information on Mellanox's full line of leading InfiniBand and Ethernet connectivity products.

About Mellanox

Mellanox Technologies is a leading supplier of semiconductor-based, high-performance, InfiniBand and Ethernet connectivity products that facilitate data transmission between servers, communications infrastructure equipment and storage systems. The company's products are an integral part of a total solution focused on computing, storage and communication applications used in enterprise data centers, high-performance computing and embedded systems.

Founded in 1999, Mellanox Technologies is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and Yokneam, Israel. For more information, visit Mellanox at www.mellanox.com.

(a) Source: Gartner, Inc., Dataquest Insight: Virtualization Impacts x86 Server Shipments, Doc #G00149691, Aug 2007, Jeffrey Hewitt, Jonathon Hardcastle, Adrian O'Connell

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