QLogic gained an impressive win for its single chip converged network adaptors (CNAs) with its exclusive placement in IBM’s Power Systems where they will deliver Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities. This win expands upon QLogic’s FCoE footprint within IBM. It now goes beyond the Intel-based x Series and Blade Center environments and into the high performance Unix and Linux environments of the Power Systems. QLogic will be the exclusive provider of single chip FCoE converged network adapter cards for all Power System configurations, including tower, rack, and blade Systems. This is a significant win as it is the first time QLogic has been able to penetrate the Power System lineup. QLogic now has multiple public announcements from IBM plus others from NetApp and EMC. If QLogic can maintain this momentum for its single chip FCoE technology with other vendors like Cisco, Dell, HP, and Oracle, it will have gained an even stronger competitive advantage in the FCoE market. more...

QLogic has now further cemented its place in FCoE with its design win with IBM p System servers. Emulex has been the dominant supplier to IBM Power System servers for the FC connectivity for the past 9 years and its lack of a tangible single chip FCoE adapter opened up the opportunity for QLogic to come in and serve IBM’s converged networking needs. This is particularly significant in QLogic’s history in the FCoE market. Add this design win with IBM for p System servers to its IBM x System server win and with its NetApp agreement to incorporate QLogic's CNAs exclusively into the company's unified storage systems, and it puts QLogic way in the forefront of FCoE adoption. Because the QLogic CNAs are based on the existing QLogic FC stack—with over 6.4 million ports deployed worldwide, existing IBM FC SAN infrastructure investments are preserved, thus avoiding forklift upgrades when IBM p System customers move to converged networks. SSG-NOW sees FCoE as a logical progression of IBM’s strategy of offering Fibre Channel over Ethernet in it server portfolio. Considering that IBM is the industry leader in server-based systems, we predict they will leverage their first-to-market advantage in FCoE to post quick share gains in the rapidly growing server virtualization market, which the company first did with its logical and physical partitions in z System mainframes and AIX-based systems. more...

QLogic gives Emulex a black eye… With exclusive design wins at NetApp & IBM, and offering the only single chip CNA you can get from EMC today, QLogic continues to pommel its competitors. If this was a boxing match, Emulex would be Gerry Cooney in the 1990 bout with George Foreman. For IT vendors, when a big customer has been buying tens of millions of dollars worth of your products each year, life is good. Wall Street is happy with your recurring revenue stream, your market outlook is upbeat, and you can showcase that big customer's brand to attract new business. The problem with large revenue streams for IT vendors is that the vendors sometimes become complacent. They assume the business will continue to exist unchallenged. They make the same product every year with minimal upgrades, living off a cash cow. In the case of Fibre Channel adapters, Emulex was living large off of revenue from IBM Power Systems, bringing in approximately $100M a year from its FC adapter business. As the only provider to IBM Power Systems, Emulex got all the divisions' FC adapter business. However, as is typical, industry players have not stood still, and Emulex has taken some solid hits. As the industry started to make plans to migrate to converged network FCoE adapters (CNA's), Emulex has been battling with having no Ethernet stack of its own. The company has scrambled to lash together a product known as "UCNA" with Server Engines in an effort to avoid defeat and try to gain some FCoE design wins and avoid an early round knock-out. The strategy isn't working; IBM Power Systems is sole sourcing single-chip CNAs for FCoE from QLogic. The single chip part is important because it reduces power consumption and enables systems vendors to integrate FCoE much more easily. I believe Emulex just lost its biggest customer to its main rival, and Emulex is out telling Wall Street that network convergence will be a big revenue driver for them--so much for that story. One of Emulex's biggest customers has effectively told them that their FCoE offering isn't up to snuff, and that has to hurt. This is what happens in these heavyweight vendor battles when one side has been engaged in concentrated training and preparation, and the other side has been coasting on old wins. I believe EMC has also been a top customer for Emulex, and they haven't announced support and use of the "UCNA" either. Available information indicates that much like IBM, the only single-chip CNA that EMC has currently qualified is QLogic's 8100 Series. There is no confirmation that UCNA is even in EMC test labs yet. more...

Server heat densities hit a wall – CNA’s bring relief…server designers face enormous challenges in the coming decade. Huge increases in processing power combined with the effects of virtualization are constraining server real estate and testing heat density limits. These issues are even more pronounced in very high performance system environments. By 2008, high-end blade servers had already reached 10kWatts/sq. ft. in heat density, and the historical increase of 30% per year in heat density for servers is holding steady. If these trends continue, the operational costs associated with space, power and cooling for most servers will exceed the acquisition costs over the life of the equipment….manufacturers are taking aim at reducing the number of cards in a server. Fewer cards mean less space and less heat. For example, a practical solution is to forego traditional designs which rely on separate Ethernet and FC cards and converge network traffic using single chip converged network adaptors (CNAs). QLogic’s recent design win with IBM’s Power System servers is an example which will help IBM save space and reduce heat in its systems. Observers should expect an increase in similar announcements as vendors make the steady march toward FCoE over the next several years. more...

Technologies such as FCoE on copper, for example, can significantly reduce the up-front costs of deploying and managing these systems. It also provides a reliable and scalable 10GbE foundation for any servers that employ IP protocols such as iSCSI, NFS, or CIFS for important server environments. Today, IDC sees a number of second-generation FCoE products that will be the foundation of early production deployments. The main characteristic to look for is a more compact chip design, making FCoE products more reliable and cost-effective. IDC expects bladed server system suppliers such as HP, IBM, and, more recently, Cisco to be the first IT suppliers to really take advantage of these new FCoE products. These companies want to help their customers make the transition to more modular pod architectures in their virtualized datacenters, and a reliable FCoE architecture is a key part of such efforts. more...

This announcement emphasizes the gain in importance of FCoE connectivity options. There clearly seems to be a demand in the market place for the most advanced FCoE technology. Vendors, and NetApp in particular, realizing this opportunity are increasingly trying to answer this demand and seize a piece of the emerging market. More specifically, the endorsement of QLogic as the primary FCoE technology provider by two top-tier vendors underlines its status as the technology leader. By selecting QLogic’s single-chip CNA exclusively throughout its entire storage product line-up, NetApp basically confirms that there is currently no product able to compete with QLogic’s combination of high performance and low space, energy, and cooling requirements. In addition to IBM’s server offerings, end users can now find a comprehensive product line of storage solutions (from IBM or NetApp) with native FCoE support that benefit from higher performance, lower cost, and new flexibility. It has never been this easy to upgrade to an FCoE converged network.
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On August 11th, 2009, NetApp became the first storage systems manufacturer to announce availability of native FCoE targets. QLogic is the exclusive supplier of the CNA for NetApp’s FCoE target storage systems. By using QLogic single chip CNA’s in its storage systems, NetApp is able to announce a unified, multi-protocol device…together with QLogic and its other ecosystem suppliers, NetApp is at the forefront of the FCoE market at this time. more...

NetApp is rebranding the QLogic Corp. 8152 as its unified target adapter, and offering it as a built-in converged network adapter (CNA) for its FAS arrays and V-Series virtualization devices. With the unified target adapter, NetApp is the first to offer native FCoE embedded into its storage systems. Bob Laliberte, an analyst at Milford, Mass.-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), said embedded native FCoE connectivity for storage arrays "has been the missing link to end-to-end FCoE… Amit Vashi, QLogic's vice president of marketing for host solutions, called NetApp's launch "a tipping point" for FCoE adoption. "Now FCoE has extended all the way to storage." ESG's Laliberte sees FCoE in a place similar to that of solid-state drives (SSDs) in early 2008 when EMC Corp. became the first vendor to offer support. Nearly every other storage vendor followed in the ensuing months. "Once the dam is broken, others will jump on it," Laliberte said of FCoE storage arrays. more...

The FCoE PCIe adapter can be added to existing NetAPP FAS 3000, FAS 3100, FAS 6000, FAS2050, V6000, and V3100 appliances providing both FC and FCoE on the same adapter. Both FC and FCoE share the same software license. The drivers for the adapter are the same for both FC and FCoE adapters, so no software modifications are needed on the operating system. Since Qlogic's CNA is a single chip product, it runs cooler and with less power than multi-chip CNAs. IBM has already selected the QLogic chip for their CNA for IBM's System X and BladeCenter. NetAPP is OEMing QLogic's 8152 CNA, rebranding it as NetAPPs Unified Target Adapter for host connectivity. Qlogic's 8152 off-loads Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet to the CNA, freeing up processing time on the CPU. Since the CNA can support both FC and FCoE, organizations can follow a phased migration path. NetApp’s McNamara said they have 20 customers in pilot projects. more...

QLogic has taken a strong position with FCoE, being the first with next generation single chip technology. The firm has followed that up with publically announced design and go-to-market announcements demonstrating its leadership position in the FCoE market. As witnessed by these public design and go-to-market wins to date, QLogic was able to leverage its first mover advantage to establish itself as the technology vendor of choice for enabling end-to-end FCoE solutions. more...

Finally, this month, QLogic nailed down its place in FCoE with its design win with NetApp – not only that its CNAs would be used in NetApp arrays, but that NetApp has named it the exclusive vendor for FCoE CNAs. This is particularly significant in telling the tale of QLogic’s FCoE strategy. Add design wins with IBM and other as yet unnamed OEMs, and it puts QLogic in the forefront of FCoE adoption. more...

QLogic Launches New Partner Program
QLogic recently announced a new partner program. The program simplifies its existing multi-tier, multi-program offering and delivers greater value as it is easier to understand, offers more flexible training and certification options, and demonstrates QLogic’s commitment to using indirect channels exclusively to sell its products. more...

QLogic’s 10Gbit Intelligent Ethernet adapters speed processing, optimize application versatility
QLogic’s entry into the Ethernet adapter market this week is highly significant because it completes the company’s data center strategy – that of providing full data center connectivity with Fibre Channel host bus adapters, Fibre Channel over Ethernet Converged Network Adapters, InfiniBand host channel adapters and now, intelligent 10Gbit Ethernet adapters – something no other network adapter vendor has done to date. more...

FCoE coming of age
"FCoE coming of age... A tier 1 server vendor design win is significant for QLogic as it continues to demonstrate leadership in the market…QLogic is providing the converged network adaptor (CNA) technology to IBM, which is packaged on a compact card in a single chip using less than 4 watts of power, complementing the power management function inherent to IBM’s HS22 Blade Server. QLogic is also providing IBM with a 10Gb CEE Pass-Thru Module, which provides connectivity between CNAs installed on IBM BladeCenter servers and external 10G switches and devices." more...

QLogic Announces First 10GbE iSCSI and 8Gb FC Router
"Analytico believes the attributes and characteristics associated with the newly released QLogic iSR6250 iSCSI router will be very attractive to users who are looking to consolidate and those who are looking to move to greater numbers of virtualized servers. The QLogic iSR6250 Intelligent Storage Router should be on the short list for consideration for users looking to lower costs and increase storage efficiencies in VMware environments". more...

IBM rolls out converged network architecture, incorporates QLogic
"If converged networking was a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, IBM and QLogic would be holding royal flushes as IBM announced its Dynamic Infrastructure… three of QLogic’s products are heralded in the Dynamic Infrastructure, for good reason – the company has the broadest range of converged network adapters (CNAs) on the market today…. QLogic's design win with IBM is to be commended." more...

QLogic's 8100 Series Converged Network Adapters
"A next-generation approach to data center convergence." more...

QLogic Continues to Innovate in Connectivity and Network Infrastructures
"The new 8100 Series of PCI-Express CNAs is based on the company’s advanced Network Plus Architecture with its leading-edge ASIC design technology and manufacturing which are seen as one integrated platform." more...

Five Reasons CIOs should Care about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
"Organizations with Fibre-based SAN should ensure that 10Gb Ethernet and FCoE strategies are in place and that new sever and storage gear is equipped with converged network adapters (CNAs). Such strategies will support a vision of a converged data center with high function/high speed communications between compute, storage, clients, voice, LAN, internal clouds and external clouds."  more...

Through a Pipe, Fastly
"QLogic has introduced hardware enabling the use of rich fibre channel storage commands through an Ethernet network. Using their FCoE technology, 10 GB Ethernet high speed storage area networks (SANs) can be constructed providing a much lower cost storage network than is possible with a conventional fibre channel network." more...

QLogic Launches Next Gen Converged Network Technology
"There’s no question that organizations are looking to drive consolidation in the data center. Server virtualization and converged networking leveraging FCoE technology are two of the cornerstone technologies that will enable such a consolidation. That’s where QLogic comes in: its new single ASIC technology will help to accelerate the adoption of FCoE and converged networks." more...