Optimized Network Connectivity

The HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapter is a mezzanine 10Gb/s Ethernet adapter for HP BladeSystem servers. It  is based on the Emulex OneConnect architecture and delivers industry-leading performance with a single-chip architecture that provides enhanced functionality and flexibility over conventional 10GbE NICs, including:

• Support for HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 that allows each 10GbE network port to be configured as four individual NIC devices, or FlexNICs.  Bandwidth is allocated to each FlexNIC, enabling optimum performance and flexibility with virtualized servers and servers that require managed I/O for individual applications.
• Industry-leading throughput based on Ixia IxChariot performance tests.  Near 10Gb/s Ethernet line rates with more message sizes than the competition.

Optimized for virtualized servers, the HPNC550m Flex-10 Adapter complements HP’s Converged Infrastructure strategy, which leverages the industry’s leading portfolio and expertise across IT systems, management tools, and facilities into a simplified architecture and common tool set based on current HP innovations and industry standards.

Higher server virtualization ratios

Due to their compact design, HP BladeSystem server blades have limited capacity to add network adapters and increase I/O bandwidth, which can be a critical resource for virtualized servers.  The HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapter delivers a full 40Gb/s of bandwidth (two 10Gb/s bidirectional ports) to support more virtual machines per server.

The HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapter also provides hardware off-load and acceleration for stateless TCP/IP and TCP Offload Engine (TOE) which minimizes use of CPU and memory resources to further enable more virtual machines per server.

Consolidation with the latest Intel Xeon CPUs

The HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapter leverages new features of Xeon processors beginning with the 5500 series, including MSI-X, QPI, PCI-Express 2.0, HTT and VT-d.  Protocol offload technology maximizes I/O per CPU to drive consolidation, reduce the number of servers in the data center and lower costs for power and cooling.

Enable Real World Networks

With HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, the HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapter supports up to eight FlexNICs per adapter to enable network traffic segmentation and redundant connectivity for high availability.  Due to the scalable number of FlexNICs per adapter, traditional NIC deployment models for IP LAN, VMotion LAN, NAS, management and backup can be supported with multiple FlexNICs.

Improved VM Mobility

HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 modules and HP NC550m Flex-10 Adapters  make it easy to deploy a dedicated VM LAN for mobility which is often cited as a best practice by hypervisor providers in active data centers. VMs can be moved across physical servers while maintaining FlexNIC connectivity.  Bandwidth can also be provisioned to adjust for I/O bursts during VM moves.