HPCwire: BLADE, Verari Team Up on BladeSwitch

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September 29, 2008

BLADE, Verari Team Up on BladeSwitch

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High-performance 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet networking provides all the benefits of network aggregation using blade-based platforms for datacenter computing without compromising on performance or energy efficiency

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 29 -- BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the industry leader in network virtualization and high-performance solutions for servers and storage, and Verari Systems, Inc., a premier developer of energy efficient datacenter consolidation platforms utilizing independent blade-based computing and storage solutions, announced a joint integration agreement to develop Verari's NB1010 Series BladeSwitch, a high-performance blade network switch. The new switch incorporates BLADE's advanced Ethernet switching technologies to deliver to users of Verari's BladeRack 2 X-Series datacenter consolidation solutions all the benefits of network aggregation using blade-based platforms for datacenter computing without compromising on performance or energy efficiency.

Verari and BLADE developed the new enterprise-class NB1010 Series BladeSwitch to combat the growing strains on Ethernet connectivity in the datacenter. Server virtualization, Web 2.0 and other data-intensive applications can all take advantage of the increased bandwidth and low latency provided by the switch jointly developed by Verari, a leading provider of datacenter consolidation platforms, and BLADE, the blade server industry's leading provider of Ethernet switches for more than half of Fortune 500 companies.

As a result of the two company's collaborative efforts, Verari's BladeRack 2 X-Series platforms are available with an embedded switch equipped with 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and four -10 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

"The network is a critical, but sometimes overlooked, component of customer scale-out datacenter requirements," said Lucinda Borovick, research vice president, Datacenter Networks, IDC. "The BLADE-Verari partnership allows customers to efficiently deploy an aggregated modular solution that integrates the networking component from the outset."

Verari's BladeRack 2 X-Series platforms can also be equipped with BLADE's new top-of-rack RackSwitch datacenter switches. For example, BLADE's RackSwitch G8100 is a 1U top-of-rack switch equipped with 24 low-latency 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) ports. It is designed for emerging high volume 10 GE application environments, such as high-performance clusters that require latency of 300 nanoseconds or less, and/or as a 10 GE aggregation switch.

"Verari's NB1010 Series BladeSwitch enables next-generation datacenter environments to scale out affordably for increased performance, scalability and energy efficiency," said David B. Wright, chief executive officer and chairman of the board, Verari Systems. "In addition to more memory, compute density and storage capacity than the competition, our blade server innovations also enable customers to fully realize the benefits of virtualization and energy efficiency as they make the move to 10 Gigabit Ethernet with BLADE's best-in-class products."

"BLADE's work with Verari is resulting in datacenter consolidation solutions that are ideal for today's massive scale-out datacenters," said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO of BLADE Network Technologies. "Our embedded switching technology works seamlessly and efficiently in Verari's BladeRack 2 X-Series platforms to ensure that demanding grid and Web serving environments can deploy full-throttle Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking and gain the full advantages of Verari's high-density approach. Next-generation datacenters know they can count on BLADE's advanced datacenter networking when they deploy Verari's technology to realize the benefits of what's becoming known as 'Rackonomics' to scale out their datacenters one rack at a time to address business demands, increase energy efficiency and reduce their total cost of ownership."

The capability of Verari's high-density blade-based computing and storage solutions to run twice the number of virtual machines per blade without network bandwidth, port capacity or latency limitations, provides organizations with compelling benefits. These include less capital expense through the reduction in the number of servers and expensive core switches, as well as associated ongoing operational and environmental cost and time savings in power, cooling, floor space utilization and management.

The virtualization power of Verari's BladeRack 2 X-Series solutions goes hand in hand with BLADE's "virtual, cooler, and easier" approach to datacenter networking. A key aspect of the two company's joint development efforts is that datacenter managers can combine up to 16 virtual machines on just one blade server, twice as many as with competitive blade offerings, while requiring just half the power, thereby reducing capital expenditure and operational costs by more than 50 percent.

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