QLogic Enables Mix-and-Match Data Centre Networking

Storage networking provider QLogic on 7 October came out with a new 10GbE converged networking product line that enables network admins to use any one- or a combination-of various data centre protocols to get workloads done.

The new group of products, codenamed 3GCNA, is based on Gen 3 of QLogic’s Network Plus architecture and features the new 8200 Series 10GbE converged network adapters, 3200 Series 10GbE intelligent Ethernet adapters and a converged LAN-on-motherboard (cLOM) package.

Mix-and-match

QLogic product marketing manager John Spencer told eWEEK that the new set of products represents several converged networking industry “firsts”, because they can run offloaded Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), iSCSI and/or IP traffic separately or concurrently; they can perform switch-agnostic, virtual machine (VM)-to-VM communication within physical machines; and they can deploy quad 1GbE and dual 10GbE ports from a single chip.

“No one else in the business offers this kind of flexibility,” Spencer told eWEEK.

The 3GCNA line, according to QLogic, introduces four I/O interconnect capabilities: ConvergeFlex: Concurrent Protocol Processing Services; VMflex: Advanced Virtualisation Services; FlexOffload: Multiple Protocol Offload Services; SecureFlex: Data Security Services.

“Now customers can shift workloads from an iSCSI SAN to an FCoE SAN without rebooting servers or waiting for an outage window,” said John Webster, senior analyst and partner, Evaluator Group. “This represents a level of network convergence above and beyond anything else in the marketplace today.”

Flexibility

QLogic’s flex ports technology for converged network switches enabled customers to shift protocol support on-the-fly, making protocol-agnostic data mobility a reality, said Bob Laliberte, a senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group.

“Shifting protocol support on-the-fly will be important to those organisations needing to dynamically support a multitude of different workloads without disruption,” Laliberte said.

“Service providers and large enterprises should especially benefit from this adaptive design that enables them to deploy variable connectivity options in a dynamic way across the data centre.”