Emulex Delivers 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Blade Adapters for Dell 16GFC Blade Solutions

PARIS and COSTA MESA, Calif., Nov. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) today announced it is delivering 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) blade adapters to support the new end-to-end 16GFC blade solution from Dell, which consists of Dell PowerEdge™ blade servers and Dell Compellent™ SC8000 storage arrays, as well as Brocade 6505, 6510 and M6505 switches. The Emulex LPm16002B-D dual-port adapters are based on Emulex LightPulse® 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapter (HBA) technology which is designed to meet the demands of today's server virtualization and cloud initiatives, multi-core processors, and solid state disks (SSDs). The newest addition to the Dell and Emulex 16GFC solution family now extends Emulex 16GFC connectivity for Dell customers across blade, storage and servers, as Emulex's Dell certified LPe16000 and LPe16002 16GFC HBAs are also qualified for Dell PowerVault™ MD3620f and MD3600f storage arrays, and Dell PowerConnect™ and Dell Force10™ switches.

"Massive growth in data, and the advent of flash/SSD based solutions, and the ever-growing need for more virtual machines (VMs) per server, is driving a more rapid transition to 16GFC," said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. "Dell's new 16GFC blade solution, leveraging Emulex 16GFC blade adapters, will give customers the first complete 16GFC blade solution, providing superior performance, integrated adapter management and reliability."

Emulex 16GFC adapters are compatible with the integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC™) with Lifecycle Controller systems management solution. iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller technology allows administrators to deploy, monitor, manage, configure, update, troubleshoot and remediate Dell servers from any location, and without the use of agents. It accomplishes this regardless of operating system, hypervisor presence or state. Dell and Emulex further extend this technology by including support for the 16GFC HBAs; allowing administrators to configure, update, and monitor the adapters without the use of additional tools or agents.  This solution will require an upgrade to iDRAC7 firmware version 1.30.30 and Lifecycle Controller2 firmware 1.1, both expected to release at the end of this year.

"Enabling a complete, end-to-end 16GFC blade solution for our customers – from blade, to switch, to adapter and storage – gives our customers a best of breed solution to help them meet their data center needs, from performance to reliability, to driving more throughput and enabling single-pane-of-glass management," said Brian Payne, executive director of server solutions, Dell. "Emulex 16GFC blade adapters are a natural extension of our broad range of PowerEdge 12^th generation blade servers. These blades streamline customers' deployments with a common driver stack and management tools, and are compatible with previous Emulex I/O connectivity solutions for Dell storage arrays and blade servers."

With more than 12 million ports shipped worldwide to date, backward compatibility to 4 and 8GFC adapters and a common driver stack and management tool across generations, Emulex field-proven 16GFC technology is ideal for Dell customers that are building next generation data centers designed for speed and agility. Emulex 16GFC adapters meet the following needs of IT professionals:

• Support for highly virtualized environments, faster databases, bigger clouds and SSDs: Emulex 16GFC adapters feature industry leading performance with more than five times the IOPS and twice the data throughput of 8GFC adapters,¹ providing faster response times for high transaction databases, greater VM density required for cloud deployments and delivering the performance needed to match ultra-fast SSDs.
• Increasing VM Densities: Emulex 16GFC adapters leverage Emulex vScale™ for superior scalability, supporting  up to 255 virtual functions (VFs), 1024 Message Signal Interrupts Extended (MSI-X) and 8192 concurrent logins and open exchanges, up to four times the number supported by competing 16GFC HBAs², enabling support for more VMs per server than ever before.
• Simplified and Time-Saving I/O Management: With a single driver model, the Emulex 16GFC adapters can be controlled, configured and managed from a single console using Emulex OneCommand® Manager, enabling enterprise scalability with time-saving features that provide more than twice the adapter management functionality and take half the time to install and manage compared to other I/O solutions.³ Emulex OneCommand® Manager plug-in for VMware vCenter™ Server allows users to manage Emulex adapters across hundreds of servers, natively from the VMware vCenter Server console so administrators don't waste time juggling multiple management applications.

Emulex is at Dell Storage Forum, this week, November 14-16 in Paris. Emulex will also be at Dell World, December 11-13 in Austin, Texas, and will host a customer reception and tweetup on December 12. To register to attend, click here.

For more information, please visit the Emulex landing page for Dell.

1. Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing

2. Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing

3. Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing

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About Emulex
Emulex, the leader in converged networking solutions, provides enterprise-class connectivity for servers, networks and storage devices within the data center. The company's product portfolio of Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters, 10Gb Ethernet Network Interface Cards, Ethernet-based Converged Network Adapters, controllers, embedded bridges and switches, and connectivity management software are proven, tested and trusted by the world's largest and most demanding IT environments. Emulex solutions are used and offered by the industry's leading server and storage OEMs including, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Huawei, IBM, NEC, NetApp and Oracle. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif. and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. More information about Emulex (NYSE:ELX) is available at www.Emulex.com.

Emulex Safe Harbor Statement
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. Emulex wishes to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include among others, intellectual property claims, with or without merit, that could result in costly litigation, cause product shipment delays, require Emulex to indemnify customers, or require Emulex to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, which may or may not be available. Furthermore, Emulex has in the past obtained, and may be required in the future to obtain, licenses of technology owned by other parties. Emulex cannot be certain that the necessary licenses will be available or that they can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. If Emulex were to fail to obtain such royalty or licensing agreements in a timely manner and on reasonable terms, Emulex's business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Ongoing lawsuits, such as the action brought by Broadcom Corporation ("Broadcom"), present inherent risks, any of which could have a material adverse effect on Emulex's business, financial condition, or results of operations. Such potential risks include continuing expenses of litigation, risk of loss of patent rights and/or monetary damages, risk of injunction against the sale of products incorporating the technology in question, counterclaims, attorneys' fees, incremental costs associated with product or component redesigns, and diversion of management's attention from other business matters. With respect to the Broadcom litigation, such potential risks also include the availability of an adequate sunset period of time to make design changes, the ability to implement any design changes, the availability of customer resources to complete any re-qualification or re-testing that may be needed, the ability to maintain favorable working relationships with Emulex suppliers of serializer/deserializer (SerDes)  modules and the ability to obtain a settlement that does not put Emulex at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, the fact that the economy generally, and the technology and storage segments specifically, have been in a state of uncertainty makes it difficult to determine if past experience is a good guide to the future and makes it impossible to determine if markets will grow or shrink in the short term. The current economic downturn and the resulting disruptions in world credit and equity markets that are creating economic uncertainty for Emulex's customers and the storage networking market as a whole has, and could, continue to adversely affect Emulex's revenues and results of operations. Furthermore, the effect of any actual or potential unsolicited offers to acquire Emulex may have an adverse effect on Emulex's operations. As a result of these uncertainties, Emulex is unable to predict its future results with any accuracy. Other factors affecting these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: faster than anticipated decline in the storage networking market; slower than expected growth of the storage networking market or the failure of Emulex's Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to successfully incorporate Emulex products into their systems; Emulex's dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, decrease in or delays of orders by any such customers, or the failure of such customers to make timely payments; the emergence of new or stronger competitors as a result of consolidation movements in the market; the timing and market acceptance of Emulex products or Emulex OEM customers' new or enhanced products; costs associated with entry into new areas of the storage technology market; the variability in the level of Emulex's backlog and the variable and seasonal procurement patterns of Emulex's customers; any inadequacy of Emulex's intellectual property protection and the costs of actual or potential third-party claims of infringement and any related indemnity obligations or adverse judgments; impairment charges, including but not limited to goodwill and intangible assets; changes in tax rates or legislation; the effects of acquisitions; the effects of terrorist activities; natural disasters, such as the earthquake and resulting tsunami off the coast of Japan in March 2011 and the significant flooding in various parts of Thailand in October 2011, and any resulting disruption in Emulex's supply chain or customer purchasing patterns or any other resulting economic or political instability; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex products as well as pricing pressures that may result from such competitive conditions; the effects of changes in Emulex's business model to separately charge for software; the effect of rapid migration of customers towards newer, lower cost product platforms; possible transitions from board or box level to application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions for selected applications; a shift in unit product mix from higher-end to lower-end or mezzanine card products; a faster than anticipated decrease in the average unit selling prices or an increase in the manufactured cost of Emulex products; delays in product development; Emulex's reliance on third-party suppliers and subcontractors for components and assembly; Emulex's ability to attract and retain key technical personnel; Emulex's ability to benefit from research and development activities; Emulex's dependence on international sales and internationally produced products; changes in accounting standards; and the potential effects of global warming and any resulting regulatory changes on Emulex's business. These and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in Emulex's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. Statements in this release are based on current expectations and, except as required by law, Emulex undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

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SOURCE Emulex Corporation