Isilon introduces iSCSI-based unified storage
Two companies in the I/O virtualization space rolled out appliances last week at VMworld that allow IT managers to virtualize their connections between servers and the network and storage with standard RJ-45 Ethernet technology.
Virtensys introduced the VIO-4004 system, which virtualizes network connectivity to a rack of servers and provides up to 80Gbps of sustained Ethernet bandwidth per server. The VIO-4004 increases performance while minimizing I/O processing.
The VIO-4000 appliance lets IT managers cable servers once and then reconfigure as necessary. The VIO-4004 can virtualize up to four Intel Ethernet X520 dual-port 10G Ethernet adapters and aggregate their performance. It creates up to 256 virtual adapters in each of the servers.
Xsigo also introduced an adapter-free version of its I/O Director which uses the built-in Ethernet capabilities of any x86-based server. The company is positioning its adapter-free I/O Director as an alternative to the more expensive Fibre-Channel over Ethernet.The Xsigo I/O Director also has as many as 64 Ethernet or Fibre Channel networks attached via a single Ethernet cable. The new Xsigo VP780 and VP560 IO Directors are expected to be available in September starting at $35,000.
In other news from VMworld, Isilon introduced its entry in the unified storage space. The company’s OneFS operating system now supports block-level applications via iSCSI. The functionality is available free to existing Isilon customers.
