Most FCoE blades shipped are HP's, which just lost senior networking exec Haas
Cisco might be making headway in blade servers, but HP is outdoing Cisco in a technology the router king has championed for a few years now – FibreChannel-over-Ethernet. Most of the servers that shipped with FCoE in the first quarter were HP blades with Emulex FCoE LAN on Motherboard, according to Dell’Oro Group.
Dell’Oro notes that 7% of servers, or 150,000 units, shipped with FCoE capable network connections in Q1. Even though HP led the pack, Cisco no doubt helped push this – its Unified Computing System blade servers are all FCoE capable, and Cisco became the No. 3 blade server vendor in the industry in Q1.
Not all of HP’s blades are FCoE capable but the rate of FCoE adoption in Q1 more than doubled that of Q4, 2010, Dell’Oro notes. Q1 was the first full quarter of end-to-end FCoE connectivity for HP and its ProLiant BladeSystem, and it allowed HP to capture 23% of FCoE switch port shipments, Dell’Oro notes.
Cisco, of course, is the market share leader in overall FCoE switch shipments. Cisco’s been offering it on its Nexus 5000 switch for a couple of years now, and it recently announced plans to add it to the Nexus 7000 core data center switch as well.
Cisco says it’s seeing a 30% “attach rate” of FCoE on its Nexus 5000 switches. The market for FCoE is also being helped, no doubt, by the fact that it’s being given away for free by most vendors. Cisco charges a license fee for it as does Brocade on its new VDX switches, but by and large, every other NIC and switch vendor is offering it as a toss in on 10G ports.
While HP enjoys its FCoE growth, the company’s executive ranks in networking have reportedly contracted. Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager of HP Networking, has left the company to join private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., according to this post by the Wall Street Journal.
Haas was instrumental in reigniting HP’s networking business and galvanizing the effort to attack Cisco in that market when it became apparent Cisco was looking to compete with HP in blade servers. Haas played a pivotal role in HP’s acquisition of 3Com, holding the initial talks with 3Com CEO Ron Sege that eventually led to the multibillion dollar purchase.
Haas’s last day with HP is June 1. HP issued this statement on his departure and replacement:
“Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager, HP Networking, has decided to leave HP to pursue other interests. Bethany Mayer, vice president of worldwide marketing and alliances for Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, will be acting lead for the business effective immediately. Mayer has more than 20 years of experience in engineering, product management and marketing in networking. A search for Haas’ replacement is currently underway.”
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