Press release:

IBM and TransWorks Collaborate to Help Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Achieve Supply Chain Efficiencies

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ARMONK, N.Y. - 05 Sep 2012:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LP), a leading global manufacturer of high-quality building materials, has increased supply chain productivity with IBM technologies. IBM and TransWorks, a transportation and supply chain management provider based in Fort Wayne, IN, collaborated to simplify LP's supply chain operations, which ships from 20 plants to a wide customer base and large number of inventory locations.

Instead of a manual tracking system that wasted time and money, LP now has an automated solution that gives end-to-end visibility of orders, shipments and inventory.

TransWorks, an IBM Advanced Partner, provided LP with the Transportation Management- Supply Chain Execution Solution. The new system, deployed on IBM Informix Dynamic Server and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager software running on IBM Power Systems servers, transports messages and automatically processes load offerings to LP’s carriers and tracks the progress of each load, while maintaining constant integrated communications between the carriers and shippers.

“With this new process, we’ve built a strong foundation of capabilities that allows us to focus our attention on delivering better, more consistent service to customers,” said Neil Sherman, Vice President of LP Procurement, Supply Chain & Logistics. “The Transportation Management- Supply Chain Execution Solution has enabled us to provide our carrier partners and operations team control across all levels of our supply chain to meet our clients' needs.”

Through this solution, LP has achieved greater control, visibility and optimization of its inbound supply and outbound fulfillment processes as well as its overall supply chain. Today, through the automated solution, LP has enhanced the management of workloads and improved overall supply chain and operational productivity by 75 percent.

“In order to succeed in today’s global marketplace and deliver value to consumers, supply chain decision makers must gain better control over supply chain operations,” said Susan Confort, Vice President of IBM Systems and Technology Global Industry Solutions & Marketing. “As IBM continues to develop powerful innovative technologies, we look forward to collaborating with IBM Business Partners who have the expertise to deliver greater value, control and innovation that matters to our clients in the retail and industrial sectors.”  

"We look forward to working with IBM as it continues to provide Business Partners with the tools and capabilities needed to help clients solve complex IT challenges," said Tim Minnich, president of TransWorks. “TransWorks is excited to have Louisiana-Pacific as a new customer, and look forward to serving them for many years to come. We continually strive to deliver measurable value and highly reliable services to our customers.”
 
About IBM
 
For more information about IBM Advanced Business Partner, TransWorks, visithttp://www.trnswrks.com.

For more information about Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, visit http://www.lpcorp.com.

Press release from NetApp:

NetApp Expands Technology Partner Ecosystem to Bring Big Data Solutions to Big Media Challenges

NetApp Furthers Leadership in Media and Entertainment Solutions with New Partners for Implementing Efficient Digital Production Workflows

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 30, 2012 — Every frame of the latest Hollywood blockbuster or hit TV program has to be ingested, edited, transcoded, and delivered, creating complicated workflows as content is shared across teams and across locations. Streamlining these processes requires greater integration between the front-end software tools used at each step with networks of back-end hardware. Storage is a critical part of this back-end infrastructure, and when integrated with front-end applications, it delivers the capacity, bandwidth, and performance that power broadcast production and content delivery.

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a leader in storage and data management, today announced the significant expansion of its media and entertainment technology alliance ecosystem to include new partners Actus Digital,Digital Rapids, Marquis Broadcast, MXFserver, Rorke Data (an Avnet Company), Signiant. Vidispine, and Vizrt.These partners join long-standing technology Alliance members ATTO Technology, Dalet, and Quantum in demonstrating interoperability with NetApp® storage solutions to solve the next generation of content production, management, and delivery challenges. Solutions from the NetApp Technology Alliance Program are on display next week (September 7–11) at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam.

"NetApp continues to foster and forge strong alliances with technology innovators who share our vision and passion for helping customers simplify workflows and unleash creativity," said Brendon Howe, vice president, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp. "An example of the success we are delivering with partners is the petabytes of storage we’ve deployed through our media and content management solution, which is the storage foundation for several world-class postproduction and broadcast media operations."

NetApp media and entertainment storage platforms include:

• Media content management solution for high-bandwidth workflows
• Fabric-attached storage (FAS) for shared application media workflows, media transactions, and analytics
• NetApp StorageGRID® for cloud or on-premises distributed content repositories

NetApp works with its alliance technology partners to test and integrate these technologies with partner applications. Together, the NetApp ecosystem provides the first compelling combination of enterprise-class IT resiliency and media-class bandwidth, capacity, and cost-effectiveness for media and entertainment workflows. These tested workflows include content ingest, media asset management, edit, transcode, file-based quality control (QC), file delivery, and archive solutions.

MXFserver and NetApp Enable Collaborative Editing Environments 
FilmPartners, creator of postproduction management software MXFserver, and NetApp are building out collaborative editing environments with cost-effective enterprise-class open storage. MXFserver works with the top three broadcast editing platforms to consolidate their operations onto efficient and cost-effective scalable NetApp storage. Due to MXFserver’s open structure, all media can be easily accessed, transferred, managed, and exchanged without the use of additional software, improving project manageability, while supporting all the project sharing and bin locking edit workgroups are used to.

Signiant and NetApp Speed File Movement
The growing size of media files and the explosion of media delivery platforms are driving the need for highly efficient, file-based content delivery workflows. And the advent of global media companies with reservoirs of content on multiple continents is causing a rethinking of how the storage layer itself should manage the millions, and now billions, of video clips being stored and accessed.

NetApp and Signiant test and confirm tight interoperability between the intelligent file transfer layer and the storage layer. Media organizations have a business-critical need to move and store digital media as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, while applying enterprise-level security and maintaining complete control over the exchanges. By extending the Signiant file movement workflow to NetApp storage systems, this joint solution helps media companies meet these stringent requirements.

Dalet Collaborates with NetApp on Full-Resolution Workflow Infrastructure
Long-standing NetApp Alliance Partner Dalet recently collaborated with NetApp to install the infrastructure for an end-to-end production workflow with both proxy and high-resolution video into one of the largest national broadcast operations in Europe. The flexible broadcast workflow, built on the NetApp E-Series platform, supports high-bandwidth production groups needing 10,000MB per second.

Additional Resources

• Become a NetApp Alliance Partner: solutionconnection.netapp.com/solution-listing.aspx
• Learn more about NetApp media and entertainment solutions:www.netapp.com/us/solutions/industry/media-entertainment
• Join the NetApp Media and Entertainment Community: www.netapp.com/media
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NetApp
• Get the latest on NetApp culture: www.facebook.com/NetAppCulture
• Join NetApp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NetApp
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/NetAppTV
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership between NetApp and any other company. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

U.S. Sets Much Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Wednesday, August 29, 2012

U.S. Sets Much Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards

By BILL VLASIC

DETROIT — The Obama administration issued on Tuesday the final version of new rules that require automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks by 2025.

The standards — which mandate an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon for the 2025 model year — will increase the pressure on auto manufacturers to step up development of electrified vehicles as well as sharply improve the mileage of their mass-market models through techniques like more efficient engines and lighter car bodies.

Current rules for the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, program mandate an average of about 29 miles per gallon, with gradual increases to 35.5 m.p.g. by 2016. The new rules represent a victory for environmentalists and advocates of fuel conservation, but were attacked by opponents, including the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, as too costly for consumers.

While the regulations have been in development for more than a year, the White House’s decision to make them final on the first full day of the Republican National Convention seemed intended to highlight one of President Obama’s proudest accomplishments at a time when Mr. Romney has laid out a different energy and environmental agenda.

The administration called the new rules “historic,” and estimated that Americans would reduce their oil consumption by 12 billion barrels over the course of the program. “These fuel standards represent the single most important step we’ve ever taken to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.

But the Romney campaign has criticized the new rules as “extreme” and said the standards would limit the choices when consumers shop for a new car. “The president tells voters that his regulations will save them thousands of dollars at the pump, but always forgets to mention that the savings will be wiped out by having to pay thousands of dollars more upfront for unproven technology that they may not even want,” said Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

EMC VFCache First to Deduplicate Server Flash Cache

EMC Press Release

EMC VFCache First to Deduplicate Server Flash Cache

Drives New Levels of Efficiency with Deduplication; Interoperable with VMware vSphere vMotion; Builds Foundation for Integration with EMC VMAX

VMworld – San Francisco, CA - August 28, 2012

News Summary:

• EMC VFCache™ solution delivers in-line deduplication of cached data—an industry first.
• EMC VFCache is now interoperable with VMware™ vSphere® vMotion® technology.
• EMC VFCache delivers new capabilities that form the foundation for integration with the EMC® VMAX® Family.
• Significant VFCache hardware and software updates improve performance and capacity, including support for Cisco UCS Blade Servers.

Follow EMC at VMworld:

• EMC Community Network: To view everything EMC at VMworld, visithttps://community.emc.com/go/vmworld
• Twitter: For continuous news and event updates for EMC at VMworld, follow EMC on Twitter at@CloudEMC and @EMCCorp and join the conversations using #EMC and #VMworld
• Facebook: To view highlight videos, interviews and more, like EMC on Facebook
• Flickr: View photos of EMC at VMworld on Flickr and tag your VMworld photos with "EMC and VMworld"

Full Story:

EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) today at VMworld® 2012 set a new benchmark for enterprise Flash efficiency by delivering in-line cache deduplication on EMC® VFCache™, a server Flash caching solution that turbo-charges performance in mission-critical Oracle, Microsoft and SAP application environments—up to 3X in some cases. EMC also extended its leadership in VMware environments, with new interoperability between VFCache and VMware® vSphere® vMotion to enable seamless and flexible movement of virtual machines in environments accelerated by VFCache. EMC continues to invest in the industry's most comprehensive Flash portfolio, delivering all the performance benefits of Flash without sacrificing the benefits of network storage—high availability, disaster recovery, data integrity, and reliability. This unique approach is why EMC shipped a record amount of Flash capacity in the second quarter of 2012.

Technology Highlights:

• More Efficient: EMC is leveraging its leadership in deduplication for backup environments and applying that expertise to caching. With the addition of in-line deduplication of cached data for a larger effective cache, the cache size of VFCache is significantly increased in environments with applications leveraging high deduplication gains. This capability delivers better cost per gigabyte and extends the life expectancy of the card.
• Deeper Integration: VFCache is now more deeply integrated at the virtual, storage and server levels to maximize mission-critical application environments. VFCache now delivers:
  • Automation of VMware vSphere vMotion environments for efficient administration. VFCache interoperability with vSphere vMotion makes it faster and easier to achieve continuous up-time and fluid operations, complete environment maintenance, and enable seamless migrations—helping customers accelerate their journey to the cloud. Through the EMC VSI plug-in for VMware vCenter™, EMC enables VMware administrators to handle other priority tasks, and ensures business continuity with no system downtime when migrating operations.
  • Simplified management, more streamlined operations, and greater visibility into operational information. EMC VFCache contains the foundational capabilities to provide EMC VMAX storage administrators with more operational information, such as VFCache's relationships to specific LUNS, more performance statistics, and error condition reporting. These capabilities will support superior storage management relative to other solutions in the industry, and represent another key step toward EMC's vision of high performance automated tiered storage. Customers continue to benefit from VFCache's turbocharged performance with the protection for which EMC storage is trusted around the world. EMC is also committed to integrating VFCache with the rest of EMC's storage portfolio—including EMC VNX™—in 2013.
  • Support for Cisco's upcoming offering of LSI's customized PCIe Flash mezzanine cards for UCS B-Series Blade Servers (announced in May 2012).
• Better Performance: The latest version of VFCache supports multiple PCIe cards per server and delivers more capacity options—with support for new 700GB PCIe cards—to cache larger working sets and offer greater performance to customers. In addition, EMC continues to optimize and advance the performance of demanding enterprise workloads by lowering latency through tuning of the VFCache caching algorithms.

In addition to VFCache, customers with mixed workloads can choose from EMC's hybrid arrays armed with EMC FAST™ (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) technology that automates the movement of "hot" data onto Flash drives and moves "cold" data to high-capacity drives. For VDI or test and development environments with 100% "hot" data, customers will be able to leverage all-Flash arrays that will deliver the raw performance required with innovative new technologies from "Project X" through EMC's acquisition of XtremIO (announced in May 2012). For persistent data stores with performance intensive workloads—including high-frequency trading or online gaming—EMC will offer "Project Thunder", a server network attached appliance built entirely of high-speed PCIe Flash (announced in February 2012).

Availability

Deduplication and other new VFCache enhancements are available today through EMC and its channel partners.

Customer Quotes:

Henrik Sørensen, SAP Operations Manager at L'Oréal Danmark SNS

"L'Oréal has made cosmetics for a century—and we are the worldwide cosmetic leader. We manage 27 global brands that are distributed throughout 130 countries. Information is gold to us—and drives our ability to innovate. The benefits of Flash technology are a key piece of L'Oréal SNS IT strategy. We use VFCache to boost the performance of our SAP application environment. With a powerful capability like deduplication—support for higher capacity drives—and VMware affinity, EMC is delivering L'Oréal SNS with an even better, faster and simpler way to achieve peak performance results for our mission-critical applications."

Scott Heffner, Network Operations Manager, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital

"Wentworth-Douglass Hospital has evolved and grown since its doors opened in 1906. We are now one of the largest acute care hospitals in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. Data is central to delivering the best care possible to patients, which is why we rely on EMC technologies—including VMAX 10K, EMC RecoverPoint™, Avamar®, and Data Domain® solutions—in a VMware virtualized environment. With new VFCache support for Cisco UCS blade servers, we will use VFCache in our virtual EMC VMAX environment to achieve the performance required of our demanding IT needs. One thing hasn't changed since 1906, and that is that the patient is still the center of our timeless tradition of providing compassionate and comprehensive care—EMC technologies help enable us to deliver exactly that."

Industry Analyst Quote:

Jeff Janukowicz, Research Director, Solid State Drives and Hard Drive Components, IDC

"IDC expects that annual Flash capacity shipped in the enterprise will grow by 20X by 2016 thanks to the ever-growing number of applications, the digitization of data, cloud and Big Data. Storage I/O is a critical performance bottleneck for many data intensive applications. Flash is the essential ingredient in the industry's race for application speed. With these latest updates to EMC VFCache, EMC is delivering efficiency that didn't previously exist for the customer. This addition to its comprehensive Flash portfolio is an important evolution."

Partner Quotes:

Eric Kaplan,VP Engineering at Ahead

"Ahead enables companies to take advantage of key technologies driving the next-generation data center. As our clients' trusted technology advisor, we partner with EMC to provide best-of-breed products and services to our customers, providing the support and direction they need to make IT a competitive advantage for their business. EMC VFCache helps our customers' applications reach the performance they need while delivering the data protection their business demands. With added capabilities for deduplication and user-initiated VMware vMotion, VFCache delivers new levels of efficiencies to our customers."

Steve Gillaspy, Sr. Director Product Management Unified Computing Systems, Cisco

"Flash storage has proven to be a very disruptive and opportunistic technology to drive application performance. We are working with EMC and other partners to continue to deliver solutions that help to enable our customers to run their mission-critical applications faster. With EMC VFCache and Cisco UCS Blade Servers, customers are finding a simpler way to drive efficiency and productivity in the data center."

Gary Green, Vice President, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware

"VFCache interoperability with VMware vMotion is about simplicity and automation for our customers. We're committed to delivering customers flexibility, efficiency and choice. As virtual environments continue to grow—and become more complex—it is interoperability like VFCache and vMotion, as well as continued innovation in PCIe Flash, that will address what customers need to handle the IT transformation occurring in the market today."

EMC Quote:

Mark Sorenson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Flash Business Unit, EMC

"Since 2008 EMC has led the market in enterprise Flash innovation—setting in motion the industry's move to Flash enabled storage arrays. EMC is uniquely positioned to help customers take advantage of Flash technology, and we continue to invest and innovate to offer purpose-built solutions for specific use cases and deployment options. Our approach is 'no-compromise'—offering hybrid Flash enabled storage arrays, Flash in the server, and Flash via the network. With the addition of deduplication, VMware interoperability, and performance enhancements to VFCache, we're yet again setting the pace for the industry—and delivering customers—the most optimized and efficient offering."

Additional Resources:

• Read the Demartek evaluation report
• Read the VFCache data sheet
• Read about VFCache in virtualized Oracle environments
• Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

Press release:

Customers Accelerate Move to an Agile Data Infrastructure with NetApp for VMware Virtual Environments

New Integration Between VMware vSphere and NetApp Data ONTAP 8 with Cluster-Mode Forms Foundation for Accelerated and Continuous Business Operations

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 27, 2012 — In order to gain the flexibility and efficiency of virtual environments, organizations are migrating IT operations from on-premise, hardware-defined application silos to virtual, software-defined cloud computing platforms. Today, however, IT departments are struggling to manage the scope, scale and complexity of inflexible storage infrastructures in data-driven enterprise. The migration to the cloud, and its agility, elasticity and reliability can best be achieved through software that abstracts out hardware resources, pools it into aggregate capacity, and enables automation to allocate resources as needed by applications.

For almost a decade, NetApp and VMware have aligned their storage and virtualization technology roadmaps to accelerate the customer journey to the cloud. Today NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) unveils integration between VMware® vSphere® 5.1 and NetApp® Data ONTAP® 8 software operating in Cluster-Mode to enable organizations to not only securely manage and deploy infinite storage pools, but to deliver non-disruptive migration of data among hundreds of virtual machines at a time. This new solution provides continuous data access and uninterrupted business operations even as infrastructure grows and scales in capacity and performance, and it requires no change to server hosts. Data ONTAP 8 operating in Cluster-Mode, Data ONTAP Edge and Flash Accel will be on display at the NetApp booth (#1402) at VMworld San Francisco, August 26 – 30.

As part of the NetApp and VMware solution, NetApp is also introducing Virtual Storage Console 4.1 (VSC 4.1), a new version of its end-to-end storage management software for VMware environments. VSC 4.1 adds support for VMware vSphere 5.1, enhanced support for NetApp Cluster-Mode configurations, and online alignment of misaligned virtual machines. The new features expand on support for existing VSC capabilities for storage management, including datastore provisioning, virtual machine cloning, and backup and recovery of virtual machines. VSC 4.1 is accessible by VMware administrators directly from VMware vCenter™, centralizing storage management and providing real-time visibility into the performance and health of your storage environment.

Together, NetApp and VMware are collaborating to accelerate movement to cloud architectures. NetApp support for VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 will enable a new era of software-defined storage, networking, and security. Data ONTAP operating in Cluster-Mode extends the virtualization benefits of VMware with the ability to transparently migrate data within a cluster to provide nondisruptive load balancing, hardware maintenance, or technology refreshes—virtually eliminating planned storage downtime. NetApp offers complete integration with the entire VMware cloud infrastructure suite, including VMware vCloud® Director, VMware View®, and VMware vShield™.

"The transition to cloud is a corporate strategy, not a tactical solution. The foundation for this business approach is a dynamic virtualized infrastructure with an easy-to-administer shared storage platform," said Brendon Howe, vice president, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp. “We continue to align our technology development and integration efforts with VMware with support for VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 to help organizations realize the power of software to greatly improve the efficiency and simplify the virtualization of more servers, desktops, and applications."

Other benefits from the NetApp and VMware integration include Data ONTAP Edge, which delivers enterprise storage services on a virtual storage appliance hosted by VMware. For remote offices, Data ONTAP Edge addresses the needs of enterprises with many small or remote offices that require local storage with minimal IT supervision and to be able to backup and protect that data easily. The result is that branch facilities can fully participate in a shared IT infrastructure without compromise.

Key New Highlights
Today’s announcement of NetApp and VMware’s further integration highlights the strength of the global partnership:

• Business Agility: The ability to scale and move to cloud architectures with flexibility to adapt to dynamic business needs
• Peak Performance: Cut virtualization storage requirements and operational expenses through deduplication
• Validated Architecture: New solution for vSphere 5.1 including Virtual Storage Console includes industry best practices and proven design
• Nondisruptive Data at Scale: Cluster-Mode enables infrastructure that can grow and change without disruption and additional resources can be added while maintaining stability and service predictability

Supporting Quotes

• Gary Green, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware  
  “As organizations of all sizes realize the benefits of cloud computing, there is a need for virtualized storage and server solutions that are reliable, proven and scalable. With VMware vCloud Suite 5.1, along with NetApp’s solutions, our joint customers are armed with storage efficiency, performance and data protection for enhanced productivity and the ability to respond immediately to business needs."
• Brian Babineau, vice president, Enterprise Strategy Group 
  “Nearly two-thirds of IT budgets are spent on maintaining infrastructure, leaving limited resources to enable new projects. NetApp and VMware’s integrated approach to virtualized environments is a catalyst to reverse this allocation so customers maximize data infrastructure flexibility and business value from their IT operations."
• Luke Norris, CEO, PeakColo 
  “PeakColo helps our clients increase application performance and drive innovation through our public, private, hybrid and customer cloud solutions. By building our infrastructure-as-a-service offering on NetApp and VMware technology we have the enhanced security and agility to create enterprise-class solutions that are specific to each of our service provider clients. Also, we have the resources to safeguard systems to recover from business disruptions."

Additional Resources

• Follow NetApp on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NetApp
• Get the latest on NetApp culture: www.facebook.com/NetAppCulture
• Join NetApp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NetApp
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/NetAppTV
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

Broadcom Extends Leadership with New StrataXGS Trident II Switch Series Optimized for Cloud-Scale Data Center Networks

Press release:

Broadcom Extends Leadership with New StrataXGS Trident II Switch Series Optimized for Cloud-Scale Data Center Networks

World's Highest Density, Feature-Rich 10/40GbE Switch with VXLAN Support Delivers 4X Network Virtualization Scale

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- 

News Highlights:

• World's first single chip to deliver more than 100 10GbE ports 
• 2X  greater forwarding density enables massive network infrastructure scaling
• Scales to support tens of thousands of server and virtual machine endpoints in multi-tenant environments
• Integrated SmartSwitch technologies deliver unprecedented innovation for cloud-scale networking

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120827/SF62960)

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, today introduced the StrataXGS® Trident II Series, a new line of Ethernet switching solutions optimized to meet the bandwidth, scalability and efficiency demands of cloud networking environments and mega data centers. Visitwww.broadcom.com to learn more.

Based on Broadcom's award winning StrataXGS architecture, the new 10/40 GbE series is the first to deliver more than 100 10GbE ports, a 4X increase in network virtualization scale and a 2X increase in forwarding and classification tables, enabling a significant return on investment on private and multi-tenant public cloud computing infrastructure connectivity.

Public and private cloud, Web 2.0 and other high-bandwidth data center applications are driving the need for higher scale and efficiency in the data center. Broadcom's StrataXGS Trident II Series delivers the most complete network switching feature set at the highest bandwidth and port density in the industry, enabling cost-effective and high performance data center build-out to an unprecedented number of server and storage endpoints, applications and users.  

Fast, Fat and Flat Networks with New SmartSwitch Technologies

The StrataXGS Trident II Series features new SmartSwitch technologies designed to break through traditional silicon and system-imposed performance barriers in cloud-scale networking. Increased performance needs for server-to-server and server-to-storage communication are driving the need for fast, fat and flat networks. Dynamic workload placement and the need for granular traffic visibility, load balancing and diagnostics are similarly driving more flexible software defined networks (SDN). The new SmartSwitch technologies include:

• Smart-NV: Delivers up to 4X greater scale, enabling SDN virtualization across both virtual and physical workloads at wire-speed. Enables cloud-scale network infrastructure virtualization using advanced Layer 2 over Layer 3 (L2oL3) network virtualization technologies such as NVGRE and VXLAN.
• Smart-Buffer: Delivers up to 5X higher packet buffer utilization and burst absorption performance using innovative traffic load-based intelligent and dynamic allocation schemes.
• Smart-Table: Delivers highest Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding scale with network topology-based profiling for maximum deployment flexibility.
• Smart-Hash: Eliminates polarization and load imbalances in fat-tree networks possessing heavy and diverse traffic patterns. Provides unprecedented network traffic visibility and diagnostics required by software defined networking. 

 Market Drivers

• Annual global data center IP traffic will reach 4.8 zettabytes by 2015¹
• Overall cloud IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 66 percent from 2012 - 2015¹
  • Predicted to account for more than one-third (34 percent) of total data center traffic¹
• Public cloud workloads expected to grow at a 50 percent CAGR from 2012 - 2015²
• 40 percent of servers are virtualized today and are projected to reach 75 percent by 2015³
• Data center 10GE ports projected to grow at a 40 percent CAGR from 2012 -  2016⁴
  • 40GE ports projected to grow at a 130 percent CAGR of from 2012 - 2016⁴

StrataXGS Trident II Key Features

• Enables unprecedented 10/40GbE single chip switch configurations
• 100+ 10GbE ports with flexibility to support up to 32 40GbE ports
• First integrated switch delivers NVGRE and VXLAN L2oL3 transit and gateway switch technologies
• Supports industry's highest equal cost multipathing-based fat-tree networking scale on a single chip
• Greater FCoE network scale enabling true LAN/SAN convergence — up to 4X increase in forwarding entries
• High port density with direct attach to SFP+/QSFP modules and KR Backplanes
• Integrated IEEE 1588 1-step timing solution
  • Delivers 40 percent reduction in bill of material costs and 30 percent better phase accuracy

Availability

The StrataXGS Trident II Series includes multiple device options and is sampling this quarter. See Broadcom's full line of solutions for cloud-scale networking this week at VMworld® 2012, Moscone Center, San Francisco (booth #2107).

For ongoing Broadcom news visit our Newsroom, read our B-Connected Blog, or visit us on Facebook or Twitter. And to stay connected, subscribe to our RSS Feed.

Ram Velaga, Vice President & General Manager, Core Switch, Broadcom "Our StrataXGS switch solutions are renowned throughout the industry for driving unsurpassed performance levels and cost metrics in data center, service provider and enterprise network environments. Our latest StrataXGS Trident II Series — a follow-on to the highly successful Trident series of single chip switch solutions — delivers unprecedented innovation with new features optimized to meet the performance, scalability and efficiency demands of both the traditional enterprise and emerging mega data centers, enabling a new era in cloud-scale and software defined networking."

Industry Quotes:

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

Christophe Metivier, Vice President, Manufacturing and Platform Engineering, Arista Networks"Arista has long partnered with Broadcom to deliver market leading switch products designed for scale, flexibility and ease of management that today's cloud networks require.  With the introduction of Broadcom's newest StrataXGS Trident II, we are excited about the integration of key features needed by today's software defined cloud networking, flexible load balancing, large table scale and higher switching capacities."

Liam Kiely, Vice President of R&D, Avaya Networking"Unprecedented demand for online content coupled with ever increasing cluster computing demands in the cloud has driven data centers to increasing scale, flexibility and levels of virtualization.  Avaya plans to power these next generation data centers with leading Avaya Ethernet switches utilizing Broadcom's new StrataXGS Trident II family."

Arpit Joshipura, Vice President, Dell"Broadcom continues to set the bar for state-of-the-art Ethernet switching technology with impressive 10GE scale with critical new features for the virtualized data center. Dell plans to be one of the first to offer customers the StrataXGS Trident II series that will enable next-generation Dell networking products designed for large-scale cloud and enterprise data centers."

Nadeem Zahid, Director of Product Management, Extreme Networks"We are seeing significant demand from next generation data centers that benefit from Extreme Networks' switches capable of virtualized, multi-tenant and flexible network architectures.  Broadcom technology has successfully powered Extreme's leading Ethernet switch portfolio to meet or exceed the stringent requirements and the new StrataXGS Trident II promises to again deliver."

Henry Cao (Cao Xiangying), Chief Operation Officer, Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co., Ltd."Broadcom's Trident family of chips provides a superior comprehensive solution for H3C data center switches, and supports H3C's "Move to the Cloud" data center network strategy. We look forward to continuing our strategic collaboration in campus LAN and data center innovation to provide our customers with the advanced technology they need to deliver a faster and more reliable network experience."

Koichiro Seto, General Manager, Core Technology Development, Information System Product Division,Hitachi Cable"Broadcom continues to lead with impressive single-chip Ethernet switch silicon with ever increasing bandwidth with key features like VXLAN, Ethernet Fabric, Smart-NV and Smart-Hash technology to address the ever increasing needs of virtualized cloud scale networking. Hitachi Cable is excited to continue the close partnership with Broadcom's newest StrataXGS Trident II series of products to deliver market leading switch platforms for service provider, enterprise and data center markets."

End Users and Software Platform Vendors

Kitty Pang (Junying Pang), Chief Datacenter Architect, Alibaba Group"High density 10 and 40GbE switches with leading network virtualization, table scale, network visibility and congestion management features enable cloud operators to deliver next generation cloud services. The significantly high level of silicon integration and comprehensive data center feature set available in Broadcom's StrataXGS data center switch portfolio is being further enhanced by the StrataXGS Trident II switch series, enabling high price-performance values demanded by cloud scale networking."

Mansour Karam, Vice President, Business Development and Strategic Alliance, Big Switch Networks"As data centers grow at an unprecedented pace, customers are looking for solutions that enable choice and interoperability in their data centers. Big Switch Networks is pleased to collaborate with Broadcom on the StrataXGS Trident II series especially designed for data center network switch equipment. Interoperability and co-existence with virtual and physical switches is core to both companies' strategy around open network virtualization solutions."

Ross Ortega, Principal Program Manager, Windows Networking, Microsoft Corporation "Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Network Virtualization with NVGRE provides scalable multi-tenancy and provides new capabilities such as seamless workload mobility in multi-tenant and mega-datacenter environments. Connecting physical and virtualized workloads and legacy servers to new network virtualized services is equally important; the StrataXGS Trident II switch series implements NVGRE gateway capabilities to facilitate such connectivity, delivering cloud scale network virtualization."  

Allwyn Sequeira, CTO & Vice President, Cloud Networking & Security, VMware"Software-defined networking will provide organizations with greater flexibility and higher resource utilization in private, hybrid and public cloud deployments. Broadcom's SmartSwitch technology innovations and support for VXLAN in their StrataXGS Trident II switch series complements VMware's vision of software defined network virtualization."  

Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs)

Samuel Chang, President, Accton"Accton has partnered with Broadcom to develop a diverse, low cost, SDN capable switch portfolio optimized for virtualized private and public clouds.  With the release of the StrataXGS Trident II series, Accton will introduce the industry's first modular, 1RU switch capable of delivering up to 32 ports of 40GbE in a unique design that supports network processor modules and future higher speed interfaces to meet evolving data center requirements."

Harrison Chang, President, Alpha Networks, Inc."Alpha Networks has worked closely with Broadcom for the last 10+ years to proudly present a very comprehensive Ethernet switch portfolio that has achieved breakthroughs in the global market. Together with Broadcom, Alpha Networks will continue to pioneer Ethernet switch market trends providing a broad range of solutions and integration services and leading the world towards excellent networking."

Victor Cheng, CEO, Delta Networks Inc."DNI is committed to provide world class Ethernet switch products with a focus on quality, superior features, power efficiency and competitive cost.  Broadcom's latest StrataXGS Trident II switch series is the perfect switch silicon that exceeds our stringent requirements and we're excited to provide the first high density 96-Port 10G ToR Switch withBroadcom to offer best-in-class solutions to drive next generation cloud scale networks." 

Industry Analysts

Seamus Crehan, President, Crehan Research"Developments such as virtualization, cloud computing, and network consolidation have all contributed to unprecedented demands on datacenter switches. This is evidenced by the recent stellar growth in 10GbE and 40GbE datacenter switches where Broadcom's existing Trident series has been a major driver.  Now with the enablement of even greater port densities at higher speeds, in addition to important and exciting new datacenter features, system vendors, OEMs and cloud providers will be able to address ever-increasing datacenter network demands."

Sam Barnett, Directing Analyst, Data Center & Cloud, Infonetics Research"Service providers, telcos and Internet content providers around the world have embraced the cloud concept in earnest and are heavily investing in new infrastructure, building on their existing networks to add a range of cloud-based services. Network virtualization and switch forwarding features that can scale to support a large number of servers and users are among the top requirements. Broadcom's latest innovation for cloud-scale networks should further strengthen the company's position as a leading supplier in this space."

Jag Bolaria, Senior Analyst, Linley Group"Higher data rates, energy efficient design and cost pressures are paramount considerations for IT professionals as they scale the network to support the massive number of connected devices and bandwidth hungry applications in the cloud.Broadcom is undisputedly one of the overall leading suppliers of Ethernet switches and continues to deliver technology optimized for next generation networks."

Resources:
Cloud-Scale Networking Feature Page
¹ Cisco, Cloud Index, 2010 — 2015
² Morgan Stanley, Cloud Computing Takes Off, 2012
³ Gartner, Network World "Virtual Desktops are All the Rage", December 2011
⁴ Dell'Oro, Ethernet Switch Forecast, May 2012

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), a FORTUNE 500® company, is a global leader and innovator in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom® products seamlessly deliver voice, video, data and multimedia connectivity in the home, office and mobile environments. With the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and embedded software solutions, Broadcom is changing the world by Connecting everything®. For more information, go to www.broadcom.com.

Press release:

AXTEL Turns to IBM for Smarter Computing Overhaul

Communications provider builds new IT infrastructure with IBM Power Systems, XIV storage systems, for greater virtualization, efficiency, and scalability

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Armonk, N.Y. - 27 Aug 2012:

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that AXTEL, a leading telecommunications service provider in Mexico, has turned to IBM for a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure to support the company’s vigorous expansion into new markets and an ever-growing customer base.

AXTEL, which provides communications services to more than one million customers in 39 cities across the country, has been growing rapidly since it was founded in 1994. As the company has grown so too has its business challenges. In addition to having to support more customers in more markets with additional services, AXTEL needed to improve its customer relationship capabilities to enable cross- and up-selling more effectively.

To solve this multidimensional problem, AXTEL selected IBM to re-architect its infrastructure of servers and storage devices with IBM Power Systems and IBM advanced storage systems. In addition to improving overall system performance and efficiency, and lowering costs, AXTEL was looking for seamless integration with the company’s SAP installation.

“We have had SAP successfully in place for several years now,” said Gaspar Rivera del Valle, IT Evolution Director at AXTEL. “The move to an all-IBM infrastructure created a synergy with our SAP platform that allowed us to achieve our business goals.”

Working with IBM and IBM Business Partner, Genesys, AXTEL deployed IBM Power Systems built with IBM BladeCenter servers. For the storage overhaul, the company deployed IBM System Storage DS8300 and IBM XIV Storage Systems, virtualized using IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.

Moving to the combined IBM server and storage infrastructure has already improved AXTEL’s application performance by 60 percent, enhanced its system availability, and significantly improved the overall level of service to the business, Rivera del Valle said. Backed by a reliable, high-performance platform for business applications, AXTEL can serve the company's growing customer base more effectively and at a lower cost.

“AXTEL understands that the right technologies, applied strategically, can help organizations achieve real business goals,” said Natalia de Greiff, IBM Mexico & LCR STG Executive. “This philosophy is the basis of our Smarter Computing approach to IT.”

About AXTEL

AXTEL is a leading Mexican telecommunications company and one of the largest operators of virtual private networks in the country. AXTEL provides integrated telecommunications services to all sectors, from residential and small and medium businesses to large enterprises and government entities. AXTEL’s telecommunications infrastructure consists of a world class network that integrates different access technologies such as point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and fiber optic, to deliver a broad portfolio of services tailored to the needs of its customers, their size and line of business. AXTEL has been recognized as a Socially Responsible Company by the CEMEFI for the past five consecutive years and has adhered to the United Nations World Pact since 2011. For more information about AXTEL, please visithttp://www.axtel.com.mx.

About IBMFor more information on IBM, please visit www.ibm.com/storage and www.ibm.com/power and follow us on twitter @ibmstorage and @ibmpowersystems.