Emulex Supports Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with I/O Connectivity and Performance Management

COSTA MESA, Calif., Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) today announced that its LightPulse® 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and prior generations of I/O connectivity solutions have inbox driver support with the release of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Server 2012, delivering more than a million input/output operations per second (IOPS) on a single port, the highest level of Fibre Channel adapter performance available today, which is needed for the pervasive deployment of virtualization and public and private cloud infrastructures. Emulex inbox 16GFC driver support, combined with Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology and the recent integration of Emulex OneCommand® Vision for Windows Server 2012 customers, allows cloud and virtual workloads to efficiently scale by dedicating logical resources to guest applications over a shared physical I/O and storage infrastructure.

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"Emulex provides I/O connectivity solutions spanning generations of protocols, as well as I/O management for Windows 2012 users," said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. "As enterprises transition workloads to private and public cloud infrastructures, this high speed connectivity and comprehensive visibility into network and storage traffic becomes a critical element in successful, high-performance virtualized and cloud data centers."

Emulex 16GFC adapters are built for the most demanding cloud and virtualized environments and have unsurpassed field-proven reliability with over 12 million ports shipped worldwide to date. Emulex 16GFC adapters are the highest performing adapters on the market today, delivering more than a million IOPS on a single port¹ and slashing the response time by 75 percent compared to its 8GFC predecessor.²

"Windows Server 2012 is designed for the evolving data center that is transitioning from virtualized to shared public or private cloud environments. The ability to process data efficiently with visibility throughout the infrastructure is now a crucial success factor for achieving desired virtual machine (VM) densities," said Sandeep Singhal, general manager, Windows Networking, Microsoft. "Emulex is supporting this evolution with high performance connectivity solutions for Windows Server 2012 that provide tight integration and compatibility with existing infrastructures and promote the transition to software-defined networking."

Emulex I/O technology and management addresses the following virtualized data center needs: 

• 16GFC In-Box Drivers: Emulex LightPulse 16GFC in-box driver support for Windows Server 2012 enables virtualized platforms to scale cloud and VM density to reduce costs.
• Support for Highly Virtualized and Shared Cloud Environments: Emulex 16GFC adapters feature industry-leading performance with significantly increased IOPS and twice the data throughput of 8GFC adapters³ for highly virtualized data centers; greater VM density required for shared public and private cloud deployments; and the performance needed to match current and next-generation Intel servers with optimized handling of very large multi-core configurations.
• Increasing VM Densities: Emulex 16GFC adapters leverage Emulex vScale™ for superior scalability in Windows Server 2012 environments, 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 HBAs,³ enabling support for more VMs per server than ever before. Integration with Emulex LightPulse Virtual adapter technology provides virtual port management within Microsoft System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager, allowing cloud and virtual workloads to efficiently scale by dedicating connectivity to shared storage.
• 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.⁴.
• Proactive I/O Management: Through Emulex OneCommand Vision, customers gain proactive I/O management, maximized I/O resource utilization and enhanced performance and availability by monitoring and analyzing critical I/O performance metrics, all from the applications perspective using the Operations Manager component of System Center 2012. The new release of OneCommand Vision 3.0 expands device support to include Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and logical storage devices and integrates seamlessly with the OneCommand Manager plug-in for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.
• Backward Compatibility: For customers leveraging 8GFC technology within Windows Server 2012, upgrading is simple, with full backward compatibility, a common driver stack and management tools across multiple generations of I/O connectivity products.

The development of Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE) is another area in which Emulex is collaborating with Microsoft.  The NVGRE protocol enables overlay networks, which allow virtualized workloads to seamlessly communicate or move across server clusters and data center boundaries. NVGRE has been designed to enable the efficient and fluid movement of virtual resources across cloud infrastructures in order to pave the way for large-scale and cloud-based VM deployments. Demand for overlay networking is being driven by the need to reduce the costs of deploying and managing virtualized server workloads and hybrid cloud deployments. At TechEd 2012, Emulex and Microsoft showed a prototype FPGA technology demonstration of NVGRE. 

1. Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing

2. ESG Lab Validation Report, February 2012

3. Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing

4. 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