V-8000 Delivers Mainframe-Class Capabilities for Commodity Servers in Large

Scale-out Environments

    SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 3Leaf Systems,
 provider of next-generation virtualization solutions for enterprise data
 centers, today introduced the 3Leaf Systems V-8000 Virtual I/O Server.
 Virtualizing the I/O subsystems for large pools of servers, the V-8000
 delivers mainframe-class availability and resiliency for commodity systems
 while dramatically reducing both capital and maintenance costs.
     The V-8000's rich feature set addresses the challenges facing today's
 enterprise data centers by maximizing server resource utilization and
 scalability, speeding up the deployment and provisioning of new servers,
 and providing high availability and centralized management while reducing
 both capital and operating costs. Capital expenditure savings from
 deploying the V- 8000 can exceed 50 percent on day one, and operations
 savings can be close to 60 percent.
     Virtual Compute Environment(TM) Delivers Scale-up Resiliency and
 Availability
     The first offering on 3Leaf's roadmap of virtualization solutions, the
 V-8000 delivers scalable I/O connectivity for servers residing in the 3Leaf
 Virtual Compute Environment (VCE). In addition to providing highly scalable
 and efficient I/O, the VCE architecture minimizes the cost of putting
 commodity servers into service by removing the need for local networking
 and storage. The servers are stateless, commodity nodes that efficiently
 connect to virtual Network Interface Cards, virtual Host Bus Adapters, and
 virtual disks through the V-8000. This I/O consolidation results in fewer
 connections to the data and storage networks supporting the VCE, which
 translates into capital savings; and because there is less to manage,
 overall operating expenditures are reduced as well.
     Cost savings are driving the overall IT consolidation market, which IDC
 projects will grow from $18.1 billion in 2004 to $24.7 billion in 2009,
 outpacing growth of the overall IT market worldwide. Virtualization
 software sales are expected to rise from $340 million to $15 billion during
 that period -- almost a 50-fold increase.
     "Traditional scale-out server architectures, when installed and managed
 on a large scale, have a very high total cost of ownership, due to the
 physical complexities of configuring and connecting so many servers and the
 amount of time required for initial provisioning and reprovisioning," said
 Mike Kahn, managing director of The Clipper Group, technology acquisition
 consultants based in Wellesley, Mass. "3 Leaf Systems' Virtual Compute
 Environment changes all of that while also improving the scalability,
 effective capacity, and availability of the underlying servers. Their
 approach makes a lot of sense!"
     V-8000 Features and Benefits
     Faster server deployment: The V-8000 enables fast deployment of new
 servers in two ways. First, because the V-8000 allows servers to be defined
 in advance, spare nodes can have new profiles applied in a matter of
 minutes rather than weeks or months. Second, network and storage do not
 necessarily need to be involved every time a new server is put into
 service, because the network and storage interfaces have been pre-allocated
 to these profiles. The streamlined deployment enabled by the V-8000
 increases efficiencies and lowers operating costs.
     Quality of service for both networking and storage: The V-8000 allows
 I/O resources to be allocated using quality of service parameters, which
 delivers limits and guarantees to both networking and storage interfaces,
 allowing service levels to be dynamically modified as application demand
 changes. This results in greatly improved utilization of I/O resources, and
 ensures priority applications are running efficiently and delivering
 mainframe-class availability.
     High availability, reduced downtime: The V-8000, along with the VCE,
 delivers high resiliency by reducing the number of components, including
 local discs, excess network and storage adapters, and switch ports in the
 data and storage networks. In addition, the software infrastructure is more
 efficient - and the result of reducing the number and flavors of drivers is
 less downtime. High availability is supported two ways: First, in case of a
 failure, the V- 8000 automatically fails over to a redundant V-8000 with
 redundant networking and storage interfaces. Second, the V-8000 has
 built-in redundancy for storage and networking, with the ability to
 automatically discover redundant storage paths and bond together redundant
 networking paths. The V-8000 delivers higher availability and resiliency at
 half of the cost of today's infrastructure.
     "3Leaf's value proposition immediately resonates with enterprise
 companies that are looking for ways to effectively deal with the headaches
 of server deployment, increasing costs while still at very low utilization
 levels, and the complexities of managing all of their computing resources,"
 said Bob Quinn, CEO, 3Leaf Systems. "We anticipate continued company growth
 and increased product demand based on the market drivers for a solution
 such as ours, and the significant customer traction we have gained in a
 short period of time."
     About 3Leaf Systems
     3Leaf Systems provides next-generation server virtualization solutions
 to support both scale-up and scale-out virtual servers in enterprise data
 centers. 3Leaf technology simplifies operations by increasing the
 utilization and availability of large-scale data center resources. A
 private company based in Santa Clara, California, 3Leaf Systems is backed
 by investors including Alloy Ventures, Enterprise Partners, Intel Capital,
 and Storm Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.3leafsystems.com
 or call 408-572-5900.
 
 

SOURCE 3Leaf Systems