EMC Connectrix NEX-5020 FCoE Switch Now Available

EMC (News - Alert) Corporation, a provider of information infrastructure solutions, has announced the EMC Connectrix NEX-5020, its first Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) switch. This is also the first switch of its kind to be offered by a storage provider.

 

This newest addition to EMC’s family of switches and directors relies on emerging FCoE standards to transfer data between physical and virtual servers and storage systems using the highly reliable Fibre Channel protocol over high speed, lossless 10 Gb/s Ethernet networks.

 

The Connectrix NEX-5020 is based on the Cisco (News - Alert) Nexus 5000 Series Switches and is designed to meet the every-increasing I/O demands of multi-core processors, VMware Infrastructure and other virtualized server and SAN environments.

FCoE is used to help simplify server and network infrastructure through the reduction in the number of cables and adapters that are required for network connectivity. This in turn reduces power consumption and overall data center costs. It also enables additional servers to be attached to the SAN infrastructure and take advantage of the capabilities of EMC’s industry leading networks storage systems.  

"FCoE technology is an evolutionary approach to consolidated storage networking and EMC is helping to lead this evolution with our key partners," said Barbara Robidoux, EMC vice president, Storage Product Marketing, in a Monday statement.

 

"The Connectrix NEX-5020 is designed to help address immediate challenges our customers are facing around infrastructure sprawl, asset utilization, and the related power and cooling issues in the data center. Just as important, it provides investment protection for current data center assets and traditional SAN tools and training."

Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing in the Server Access and Virtualization business unit for Cisco said in the statement, "The innovative architecture of the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches helps to reduce costs and simplify data center management by supporting a lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet unified fabric.”

 

“By working closely with EMC, we're able to help customers interested in data center consolidation and improved business agility to take advantage of these benefits in a nondisruptive manner, scaling the transition at the pace their business requires," Jiandani added.

FCoE infrastructure deployments with the Connectrix NEX-5020 will utilize Converged Network Adapters that will combine the functionality of an Ethernet NIC and a Fibre Channel host bus adapter to provide server connectivity to the NEX-5020.

"Emulex (News - Alert) continues to drive the adoption of Fibre Channel technology and is dedicated to working with EMC to enable our joint customers to seamlessly deploy converged FCoE solutions, while extending their existing Fibre Channel infrastructure investments and expertise," said, Taufik Ma, vice president of product marketing, Emulex Corporation, in Monday’s statement.

 

"By leveraging field-proven Fibre Channel technology, Emulex CNAs allow companies to protect and extend their Fibre Channel investments, while delivering reduced data center complexity, management costs and power consumption."

Amit Vashi, vice president, QLogic Host Solutions Group, added to the Monday statement, "The introduction of EMC's first FCoE switch is another major milestone for the rapidly emerging converged networks market.”

 

“By combining the industry's first commercially available FCoE adapters from QLogic with the EMC Connectrix NEX-5020, customers can consolidate their storage and data networks on one platform while preserving their existing Fibre Channel investments," continued Vashi.

The EMC Connectrix family is positioned as offering the industry’s most extensive selection of networked storage connectivity products that range from highly available enterprise-class directors to edge switches and management tools.

All Connectrix systems concurrently support multiple hosts and operating systems in order to enable multiple servers to connect to multiple storage systems from EMC as well as other vendors. This helps facilitate the consolidation of information onto fewer storage systems for improved management, protection and availability.

Connectrix has done well to identify those issues that are the most challenging for its customers and develop solutions that address these challenges and anticipates future issues as well.

This latest solution enables customers to protect their current investments, improve their overall data center storage and operation and optimize performance, thereby delivering added value for the customer to drive adoption and market growth.

Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is ApplianX IP Gateway as a VoIP-Enabled Programmable Switch, brought to you by Aculab (News - Alert).