Divide and conquer: New features provide a smooth path to 10Gb networking

Do you covet the power of 10Gb networking, but can’t afford to do it right? Is your data center running up against I/O bottlenecks that affect your ability to use virtualization and storage effectively? Are problems such as server sprawl and network management limiting your ability to grow?

If so, you’re not alone. Many companies are finding that server and network administration problems are making it tough to control expenses and cut costs.

“The cost of spending versus the cost of management has grown at four times the rate of servers hardware spending,” says Jed Scaramella, research analyst for IDC's Enterprise Server: Technology Market program. “That’s why there’s an increasing emphasis on controlling operational costs, so things like better server and network management can make a difference.”

Because so many organizations are looking for new fixes to these problems, HP recently introduced Virtual Connect Flex-10—a new capability that divides redundant 10Gb connections into eight NIC ports, or FlexNICs. Each FlexNIC can be fine-tuned dynamically from 100Mb to 10Gb, in 100Mb increments, rather than the standard all-or-nothing approach. That means you can support up to 24 NIC ports per blade, the most in the industry. And you get four times more NIC connections per blade, without adding additional switches or NICs.

Virtual Connect Flex-10 is the world’s first technology from a major server vendor to divide and fine-tune 10Gb Ethernet network bandwidth at the server edge1. The result? Businesses gain the ability to consolidate network equipment by a ratio of four to one, cutting network costs up to 66 percent. This also gives IT managers more options in allocating network capacity to different applications based on their business priorities. And because 10Gb capabilities are built in, you can perform ultra-fast virtual server moves and recoveries within a blade enclosure and between blades, even if you don’t have 10Gb in place today.

“The new I/O capabilities of Virtual Connect Flex-10 are interesting—they could help with storage bottlenecks and problems with virtualization management,” says Scaramella.

“Often, people are bullish on virtualization, they want to do it, but sometimes I/O bottlenecks are a roadblock,” he explains. “Many companies are realizing that virtual sprawl can be just as much a problem as physical sprawl, and they’re starting to bump into server and network management problems.”

If running a tighter, more efficient IT engine is your goal, Virtual Connect Flex-10 is an economical way to do more with less. You get the savings that come from fewer network cards needed per server and fewer network modules, cables and core switch ports used. Best of all, you don’t need to start with expensive new 10Gb hardware: You can build the capability gradually, as resources and opportunities grow.

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