BLADE Network Technologies and Emulex Deliver Essential Networking Components for IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric

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Emulex Corporation ELX and BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data center networking, announced that the two companies are delivering the essential networking components for IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric. BLADE’s BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module combined with Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter provide an end-to-end converged networking solution for IBM BladeCenter H and HS22 blade servers.

Virtual Fabric for IBM BladeCenter provides flexible Ethernet connectivity, virtual port switching and support for future converged networking with iSCSI or FCoE. Unlike the physical port switching employed by conventional switch fabrics, the Emulex-BLADE solution provides a virtual fabric for IBM BladeCenter supporting 1Gb/s or 10Gb/s that can be configured into up to eight virtual ports with bandwidth allocation in 100Mb/s increments.

BLADE’s switch-resident and hypervisor-agnostic SmartConnect with VMready software is the industry’s first shipping product to enable network policies to move along with Virtual Machines to maintain application performance, availability and security.

The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter CFFh for IBM BladeCenter provides the fastest and most flexible blade server Ethernet connections in the industry, offering two physical 10Gb/s Ethernet ports that can be configured into up to eight virtual ports with bandwidth allocations in 100Mb/s increments. Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters are field upgradable to iSCSI or next-generation Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). BLADE’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches support iSCSI and can be upgraded with new firmware to support FCoE, allowing a converged networking infrastructure to support diverse application requirements within the data center.

“One of the challenges customers face today is that they have too many devices in their data centers that need to be managed,” said Alex Yost, vice president, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “Virtual Fabric for IBM BladeCenter, developed in partnership with Emulex and BLADE Network Technologies, allows customers to significantly reduce the number of adapters, switches and cabling by offering up to eight virtual adapters with the flexibility to work at any bandwidth from 100Mb to 10Gb.”

“Emulex and BLADE Network Technologies are working with IBM to bring industry-leading 10Gb/s Ethernet and virtual I/O solutions to the market that help IT managers reduce costs and scale their operations through the performance and consolidation benefits of network convergence,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Business Development, Emulex. “Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters for IBM BladeCenter are based on our OneConnect™ Universal Converged Network Adapter architecture and work seamlessly with BLADE’s convergence-ready switches to provide an ideal solution for IBM BladeCenter customers seeking to lower capital expenditures, maximize blade consolidation and deploy highly virtualized environments.”

“BLADE’s FCoE-ready virtual fabric switch automatically recognizes Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter and has the ability to connect massive virtualization environments that span thousands of servers, helping simplify management and improve performance for today’s agile workloads,” said Charles Ferland, vice president of EMEA, BLADE Network Technologies. “Working with Emulex and IBM to deliver this combined solution confirms that BLADE switches are today’s best choice for next-generation data center networks.”

Availability

BLADE’s BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter (Part number 46C7191) and Emulex’s Virtual Fabric Adapter (Part number 49Y4235) will be available in November from IBM.

View the product demonstration video at:http://www.youtube.com/EmulexVideo.

For more information on Emulex connectivity solutions for IBM, visit: http://www.emulex-ibm.com.

For more information on BLADE networking solutions for IBM BladeCenter, visit:http://www.bladenetwork.net/ibm.

About Emulex

Emulex is the leader in converged networking solutions for the data center. Our Connectivity Continuum architecture provides intelligent networking services that transition today’s infrastructure into tomorrow’s unified network ecosystem. Emulex provides a single framework that intelligently connects every server, network and storage device within the data center. Through strategic collaboration and integrated partner solutions, Emulex provides its customers with industry leading business value, operational flexibility and strategic advantage. Emulex is listed on the New York Stock Exchange ELX and has corporate headquarters in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at: http://www.emulex.com.

About BLADE Network Technologies

BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) is the leading provider of Gigabit and 10G Ethernetcloud-ready networking solutions for dynamic, enterprise data centers worldwide. In addition to its innovative OEM blade switches, and SmartConnect with VMready virtualization and BLADEHarmony Manager software, BLADE’s “Virtual, Cooler, Easier” RackSwitch family enables “Rackonomics” – an efficient approach for scaling out data center networks to drive down total cost of ownership. BLADE’s customers include more than 300 of the Fortune 500 across 26 industry segments, representing nearly 7 million switch ports connecting over 2 million servers and storage systems in data centers around the globe. Visit: www.bladenetwork.net. Twitter: @BLADENetwork.

Emulex Safe Harbor Statement

“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events and future performance. Emulex wishes to caution readers that a number of significant factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include changes in economic and industry conditions and the effects of ongoing global economic uncertainty, changes in end user demand for technology solutions; the effect of any actual or potential unsolicited offers to acquire Emulex; Emulex’s dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, or decrease or delays in orders by, any such customers, or the failure of such customers to make payments; the rapidly changing nature of technology, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and enhancements by competitors; the effect of rapid migration of customers towards newer, lower cost product platforms; slower than expected growth of the storage networking market or the failure of Emulex's Original Equipment Manufacturer (“OEM”) customers to successfully incorporate Emulex products into their systems; delays in product development; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex’s products; Emulex’s ability to gain market acceptance for its products; any inadequacy of Emulex’s intellectual property protection or the potential for and impact of third-party claims of infringement, including any inability to successfully defend itself against any intellectual property claims, obligations relating to customer indemnification, any failure of suppliers to satisfy indemnification obligations and other potential business disruption; Emulex's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; and the Emulex's reliance on third-party suppliers. These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in Emulex’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. Statements in this release are based on current expectations and Emulex undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Emulex Corporation
Katherine Lane, +1 714-885-3828
Director, Corporate Communications
katherine.lane@emulex.com
or
BLADE Network Technologies
Maxine Bingham, +1 704-806-5028
press@bladenetwork.net
or
ZNA Communications
Zee Zaballos, +1 831-425-1581 x201
BLADE@zna.com

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