Emulex Corporation has announced the Emulex Connect Architecture(ECA), a three-year roadmap addressing the connectivity needs for end users and server and storage Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). In addition, Emulex also announced OEM sampling of the Emulex Engine (XE)201 I/O Controller, the industry's first quad-port converged fabric controller unifying Fibre Channel and Ethernet. This was unveiled today during "The Emulex Connect Architecture – Maximizing Networks for Cloud and Virtual Connectivity" live webcast.

The Emulex Connect Architecture encompasses the evolving requirements for cloud and data center connectivity, including I/O virtualization, scalability and management capabilities. The XE201 I/O Controller is designed for next-generation PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 systems and is the first converged fabric controller capable of offering OEMs the choice of 16Gb/s Fibre Channel or 10Gb/s Ethernet (10GbE) with protocol support for RDMA over Converged Enhanced Ethernet (RoCE), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI, as well as 40Gb/s Ethernet (40GbE) connectivity. The XE201 I/O Controller supports up to four channels of 8Gb/s Fibre Channel, two channels of 16Gb/s Fibre Channel, four ports of 10GbE, one port of 40Gb/s Ethernet (40GbE) and combinations of the above, providing an unprecedented level of flexibility and scalability for today's expanding data centers.

"The XE201 I/O Controller changes the game for our customers, with the ability to run concurrent native Fibre Channel and Ethernet simultaneously, for the first time," said Shaun Walsh, vice president of marketing, Emulex. "It is also the first converged fabric controller that is capable of 16Gb/s Fibre Channel and 40GbE, providing a path forward from today's discrete networking model into full network convergence on a single platform."

The Emulex XE201 I/O Controller will offer the following key benefits:

• vScale Workload-based Performance and Scalability: The XE201 I/O Controller delivers twice the bandwidth available with today’s Fibre Channel and Ethernet adapters. The XE201 uses Emulex vScale, featuring an eight-core architecture that supports pooling of resources for dynamic allocation to multiple protocols, enabling scale-out of up to 256 virtual machines (VMs).
• vPath Virtual I/O Support: Emerging I/O virtualization standards, including Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) and Virtual Ethernet Bridge (VEB), are supported by an internal Ethernet switch, which allows data to be forwarded between collocated VMs while ensuring I/O traffic isolation.
• GreenState Power Efficiency: The XE201 enables low power breakthroughs, including GreenState power management, allowing selective dynamic hibernation, advanced thermal and power instrumentation, and a configuration with less than 3 watts per port.
• Emulex vEngine Enables More VMs per CPU: Emulex vEngine's I/O offload support lowers the CPU burden on the host server by 25% and enables 20% more VMs per core.
• OneCommand Management Support and Pay-As-You-Go Flexibility: Emulex ensures management simplicity with OneCommand management and VMware vCenter support across all Emulex adapters and an evolutionary, flexible pay-as-you-go model for discrete and converged network environments.