December 16, 2005
Level 5 Networks, a provider of high performance Ethernet network interface cards, and Verari Systems, a developer of platform-independent blade server systems, announced that they are partnering to accelerate application performance on blade server clusters. The two companies will conduct a demonstration showing four times more transactional throughput than is possible with conventional Ethernet network interfaces in blade servers. Level 5 Networks and Verari Systems will unveil the solution at Interop NY in booth #242 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, December 13-15, 2005.
The financial services industry is on the leading edge of computing and is actively deploying cluster technology similar to what is being used in high performance computing. To sustain a competitive advantage in the market, companies must be able to access, process and act on information faster than their competitors. Building productive high performance computing data centers using the "scaled-out" model of connecting cost effective servers together over a network boosts the performance of many applications and delivers the best price/performance. This model requires a high performance network to connect the servers in order to maximize the productivity of all the servers in the cluster.
"Wall Street financial institutions have been looking for network technology which significantly enhances application performance on server clusters," said Dan Karr, president and CEO of Level 5 Networks. "Level 5 Networks accelerates application performance while maintaining full compatibility with the existing Ethernet and IP network infrastructure. Preserving compatibility with existing applications, networks and operating systems allows companies to take advantage of the increased performance our product provides through a simple upgrade to the NIC in the server."
The Level 5 Networks solution is an accelerated version of Ethernet that speeds transaction rates and computational throughput without new hardware and complex software changes. Other non-standard high performance networking solutions, by contrast, require both hardware and software changes.
By eliminating the server I/O bottleneck and liberating server compute power from I/O processing, Level 5 Networks can increase productivity by enhancing data center performance. By optimizing the existing IT infrastructure, customers maximize the investment in the Verari Systems servers that support the transaction-intensive demands of financial services. The combined solution lets financial services firms conduct their research more efficiently and accelerates buy and sell transactions providing them with a competitive advantage:
Accelerating the performance of existing financial applications enables financial analysts to reduce the time required to conduct research and create models and forecasts that have never before been possible
High transaction rates provide competitive advantage in fast-moving global financial markets
Compatibility with IT standards removes the implementation risk, allowing simple integration into existing IT operations
"The combination of high performance servers and the latest Ethernet networking technology provides the financial services and other industries with the ultimate high performance Ethernet-based server solution," said David Driggers, CEO of Verari Systems. "This announcement reaffirms Verari Systems' commitment to bringing groundbreaking technology to the market, to give our customers an edge on their competition."
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