Emulex Blog: Down to the Wire @ IBM®

The Future Isn’t What it Used to Be

Posted March 21st, 2013 by Alex Hollingworth

It has been a while since my last blog post, but just recently I read Steve Jobs, The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson…wow, talk about inspiration!

It made me think of what Emulex and IBM are doing together and the strategy we have of making great products greater by using innovative technology and simple design.

In 1974, Steve Jobs was a technician for Atari in Los Gatos, California where he undertook a project from Atari’s Allan Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell to build an arcade machine that had great design, slick performance and most importantly, was technically simple to build. In fact, Bushnell was so insistent that the Atari ‘Breakout’ arcade game should be technically efficient, he offered Steve a bonus of $8,000 if he could do it using 50 chips or less. At which point, Steve managed to persuade his friend Steve Wozniak to help, and four days later using just 45 chips, the ‘Breakout’ prototype was ready. This was one of several small projects that led Steve and ‘Woz’ to create Apple in 1976, and we all know how that turned out!

The ‘Think Different’ campaign was first launched by Apple in 1997. I have seen it before without really thinking about the slogan too much. The thing is, technology visionaries like Steve Jobs just see technology differently. In an age where Bill Gates and Microsoft were very much pushing open systems and the licensing model that eventually ensured Microsoft Windows was to become the world’s most successful operating system (OS), Steve was pushing a closed system. Conversely, Steve wanted to have tight integration between the hardware, software and even to the extent of controlling retail outlets to make sure the customers and users had the very best experience possible when using his products. Steve thought that this philosophy was critical to the success of Apple and there is no doubt that history has proven him right.

In recent years, IBM and Emulex have worked together to bring (in some small part, at least) these philosophies into our products and design mantras. Now I am not suggesting for a second that suddenly IBM has closed its systems for tighter integration of software and hardware. Indeed IBM is one of the leading vendors in the world when it comes to open standards. What I am trying to say is that, certainly from a networking standpoint, that IBM and Emulex are driving the next generation of server platforms including, IBM System x, IBM BladeCenter, IBM Flex Systems and IBM Power Systems that have simple network design and powerful functionality, which creates massive customer value.

IBM has made Emulex their I/O partner of choice because we offer technology that ensures competitive differentiation between IBM and its competitors. The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter (VFA) series of Ethernet products for IBM enable IBM customers to virtualize and converge their Ethernet and storage fabrics using virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC) technology, which in turn, reduces the amount of physical network adapters required when configuring a virtualized environment. In fact, technology provided by Emulex has such leadership when it comes to VFAs that IBM has selected technology provided by Emulex to be part of their LAN on motherboard (LOM) design (Steve no doubt would be pleased to hear of a smarter and more integrated solution). Consequently, making the default LOM Ethernet adapter in many of IBM’s latest products, such as IBM System x3750, IBM BladeCenter HS23, IBM Flex System x220 and x240 servers, a solution provided by Emulex, in addition to being widely available across standard NIC, modular LOM (MLOM) and CFFh adapters. Regardless of what form factor your customers choose, IBM uses the same chip ASIC provided by Emulex for all of these option cards, which means IBM customers have only one file of firmware and drivers they need to manage through one management interface, which ensures functionality, such as NIC teaming, becomes seamless, rather than fragmented when compared to other I/O vendors.

When configuring new solutions, additional considerations must now be made. With technology provided by Emulex being selected for the IBM 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) LOM design, it means that customers are already using the Emulex management tool, OneCommand® Manager (which manages all Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters provided by Emulex), which can be fully integrated into IBM Systems Director and VMware vCenter™ Server, it becomes harder to see why configuring another I/O vendor would add value? By selecting IBM Ethernet and Fibre Channel products provided by Emulex together, customers will benefit from one firmware and driver file, one management system and easy NIC teaming over one ASIC covering ALL IBM System x, IBM BladeCenter and IBM Flex System formats. To add another I/O vendor increases complexity, doubles the amount of management software required and makes complex networking configuration more difficult. So when contemplating new projects and considering network design, remember the future isn’t what it used to be but Emulex and IBM have simplified network design and made some great products. Design different, think different and WIN different with IBM and Emulex.

Updated Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter II for IBM BladeCenter Servers!

Posted March 4th, 2013 by Jeff Lin

Virtual Fabric color logoIBM has announced the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter II for IBM BladeCenter (00Y3266) and Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter Advanced for IBM BladeCenter (00Y3264).

These new IBM-branded solutions are refreshes of the current Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter II for IBM BladeCenter (90Y3550) and Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter Advanced for IBM BladeCenter (90Y3566).

The new adapters now support pNIC, Virtual Fabric Mode and Switch Independent Mode out-of-the-box. Existing adapters support only pNIC and Virtual Fabric Mode out-of-the-box, but Switch Independent Mode is supported via a firmware upgrade.

Switch Independent Mode allows you to use the adapter with all supported 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) switches. Virtual Fabric Mode is only supported with Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters on IBM servers with IBM System Networking’s Virtual Fabric Switch.

The new adapters are supported on the IBM BladeCenter HS22 and HS23E.

The Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter II for IBM BladeCenter (00Y3266) can be upgraded to FCoE and iSCSI functionality via the Virtual Fabric Adapter Advanced Upgrade (49Y4265).

The official announcement letter from IBM can be found here and the IBM Redbook can be found here. Check out our microsite here for everything you need to know about IBM I/O connectivity provided by Emulex for IBM server, networking and storage solutions.

Converge Does Not Mean Discard

Posted November 10th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

One of the key elements of Emulex’s approach to this whole convergence solution is the whole point of calling it a converged network is to actually bring the same functions you had before to the table.   It’s not much of a convergence if you use an ethernet cable to run your fibre channel protocol over it and do nothing else.  You need to supply the same features you’ve enjoyed from your previous generation of NIC functionality and FC functionality, you’re just using a new physical layer.

At least, that’s what I thought.  Then I started having people react to our solution and tell me how ‘nice’ it is we actually did something as simple as NIC Teaming.  So I wanted to list out the functionality we offer on our 10Gb NIC part of the solution.

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Demoing the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter at SNW Europe

Posted October 28th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

I have been extremely busy of late making sure the last few weeks of integration testing are complete and any bugs we can find are stamped out, and I’ve been unable to keep up at least a weekly cadence this month, so I thought I would blast out some commentary on a number of things that have happened here in one big consolidated post.

It appears that the appropriate sacrifices were made to the gods of computer shows and our demonstration of the eVFA adapter on the IBM BladeCenter at Storage Networking World: Europe.

Unfortunately, due to my need to be in the States to help finish up our final testing before general availability, I was unable to attend in person. Instead, I helped walk the team over the phone through enabling the adapter & getting VMware up and running.

I’ve been following vicariously through people that have gotten updates and posted their thoughts. One author, Nigel Poulton, was lucky enough to gain some nice pictures of the HS22 with the eVFA card installed in his write-up, and he touches on something I wanted to expand on a little bit in this quote:

NOTE: Of particular interest to me was the fact that the core features, as well as the base cost, of this adapter are 10Gbps Ethernet. This is very interesting when you consider Emulex are traditionally a Fibre Channel company. Clearly Emulex are moving with the market here and recognising Ethernet as the dominant technology and building on that. Emulex also have people on IEEE 802.1 committees such as DCB. Now that’s what I call not betting against Ethernet.

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The vNIC Function of the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter

Posted September 28th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

Last week, I talked about the main hardware features of our eVFA adapter. This week I wanted to talk about the primary feature of the card above the dual 10Gb ethernet ports, which we have been calling vNIC.

vNIC is a feature of the adapter to present multiple adapters to the operating system through the PCI Function ID of the adapter.   When an operating system scans the adapter and the vNIC function is enabled through the UEFI BIOS (which is on by default) the operating system will see up to eight PCI function IDs with eight unique MAC addresses.   The PCI Functions are numbered 0 – 7 and are always enumerated with functions 0,2,4,6 being assigned to Port 0 as VNIC 1 – 4, and then 1,3,5,7 being assigned to Port 1 as VNIC 1-4.

In the initial launch, you will have some basic configuration options at the card level. However, primarily you will be configuring your vNIC solution from the switch as the switch controls the virtual groups and the bandwidth assigned to each virtual NIC.   The switch in this solution is provided to IBM by Blade Network Technologies.   It’s their BNT 10-Port 10Gb Ethernet Switch Module.  They have some detailed information similar to our pages on the IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric solution along with a solution brief.

The BNT switch also provides 1Gb or 10Gb connections just like the eVFA adapter does.   Giving you the ability to start with 1Gb network and grow into 10Gb.   You could easily provide 10Gb of bandwidth to the blades and between your IBM BladeCenters and still connect to the corporate network at 1Gb.

We will be working on a IBM Redbook that will be available when the solution ships later in October.  If you have any scenarios you’d like to see discussed in the RedBook feel free to give me some ideas either here or you can e-mail me as always.

So What is This Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter anyway?

Posted September 20th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

IBM and Emulex have announced the IBM BladeCenter Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter recently and I promised I’d start picking apart the features every week so that you can get an idea of what this adapter and the total BladeCenter Virtual Fabric solution can do.

I wanted to start at the easy side, and work my way into the more complex features.   So the easiest side of this is that at it’s core, the eVFA (my short name for this) is the base function of the adapter.  At it’s core, this adapter is a two port 10Gb Ethernet adapter with full offload functionality.   So let’s take a look at that function first.

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This is eVFA, I’m going in.

Posted August 27th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

There is a reason I sit on an exercise ball while I’m in my home office. Some of it is because it’s supposed to give you better posture and keep you working your legs to keep yourself balanced, the other is I’ve been hopping up and down with excitement for a new product we’ve announced today in conjunction with IBM and Blade Network Technologies.

IBM today announced the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter for IBM BladeCenter. This adapter in conjunction with the Blade Network Technologies 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module introduces IBM BladeCenter’s new Virtual Fabric Architecture. The eVFA Adapter is based on Emulex’s OneConnect family of Universal Converged Network Adapters (uCNA)

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Are We There Yet? Are we THERE YET?

Posted August 24th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

Recovering a little from some excitement of last week I wanted to complete a blog post I’d started. I continue to try and see what the rest of the world has to say about convergence and the market excitement around it.

Since my first post introducing my thoughts on where we stood with FCoE and it’s now been three months and there has been some ratification activity and there has been a few more independent bloggers out there that have begun to tear into the world of FCoE.

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This is Not the Convergence You're Looking For.

Posted June 29th, 2009 by Tom Boucher

You know, my crystal ball has been doing pretty good the last few weeks. It’s like I’m not even trying to predict some of the missteps we’re going to be seeing as this new 10Gb Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and all the other things ‘the industry’ is going to be pushing for adoption over the next few years.

In my last post I talked about this new word everyone is tossing about the new buzz word ‘convergence’ and how I noticed that it wasn’t very converge-y (is that a word?) of them to announce a new adapter, and then only talk about one of the features that would be needed to truly ‘converge’ an adapter.
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