Virtensys brings I/O virtualisation technology to Europe

Virtensys switches aggregate access to the LAN and SAN for up to 16 servers

Virtensys has announced the availability of its I/O virtualisation (IOV) switch products through resellers in Europe, and said that it expects the technology to appear in blade server hardware in the near future.

The switches, now known as the VIO 4000 series, are available to UK customers through specialist resellers such as Nviron, SGI, Virso and ADA Computer Systems, Virtensys said.

First demonstrated last year, the technology was initially available only to server and storage vendors for integration into their own product lines.

With IOV, the disparate network and storage interfaces required by each server are replaced with a single high-bandwidth external PCI Express link to a Virtensys switch, typically located at the top of the server rack.

The switch is then fitted with standard PCI Express host bus adapters to provide local area network and storage area network connections for the servers, simplifying cabling and allowing changes to the infrastructure without having to move cables around, according to the firm.

This consolidation of I/O resources can reduce server management costs by more than 60 per cent, power and cooling costs by up to 30 per cent and equipment costs by as much as 50 per cent, the company claimed.

Virtensys chief executive Ahmed Houssein explained that there is now growing interest in IOV from customers in Europe and Asia, following its availability in the US last year.

"Some customers have found that this is the cheapest way to get into 10Gbit/s Ethernet," he said.

This is because an entire rack of servers can be connected through a Virtensys switch fitted with just one or two costly 10Gbit/s adapters, instead of each server having to have its own dedicated adapter.

Virtensys is also talking to "all the blade server vendors", according to Houssein, and expects the switches to appear in products in the near future, although he did not specify an exact timeframe and declined to name any specific vendor that has signed up to use the technology.

"Some of these guys see IOV as a differentiator, especially with Cisco moving into the server space. There's a lot of fear out there about what the Cisco move might lead to," he said.

Virtensys currently has two top-of-rack products available: the VIO-4001 provides just I/O, while the VIO-4008 can also be fitted with up to eight SAS or Serial ATA hard drives configured as a Raid array to provide local storage for the servers.

Both can be fitted with up to two Ethernet adapters (1Gbit/s or 10Gbit/s), and up to two Fibre Channel adapters (4G or 8G) or Serial ATA Raid controllers (3Gbit/s or 6Gbit/s).