If converged networking was a Texas Hold ‘ Em game, IBM and QLogic came up with royal flushes this week.
If converged networking was a Texas Hold ‘ Em game, IBM and QLogic came up with royal flushes this week.
IBM announced what it calls its Dynamic Infrastructure, which converges the network with IBM Systems x and BladeCenter systems. IBM describes its Dynamic Infrastructure as a network network that converges traditional IP networks with storage-area networks.
The Dynamic Infrastructure IBM is introducing consists of many parts, with QLogic providing many of them. It incorporates Blade Network Technologies’ switches for the IBM BladeCenter; Brocade’s top of the rack converged Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) switch; Cisco’s Ethernet switches; Emulex’ converged Ethernet adapters; and, three of QLogic’s products. In QLogic’s case, those products would be a Converged Network Adapter for the IBM BladeCenter, a Converged Network Adapter for PCIe for IBM System x Servers and a 10Gbps Pass-through module for the IBM BladeCenter.
Part of the package is also a Brocade Converged Network Adapter PCIe for IBM System x servers and a Convergence-Ready Blade Network Technologies 10Gbps 10-port switch module for the IBM BladeCenter.
IBM’s view of the converged network makes a lot of sense. It incorporates top-of-the-line products from companies such as Cisco and QLogic. And it is a comprehensive offering that will help customers save money on new network deployments.
