Press release:

NetApp Simplifies Storage and Data Management with Support for Windows Server 2012

Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud Migration Accelerated by Microsoft and NetApp Technology Integration

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 4, 2012 — Trends toward greater virtualization of IT infrastructure, increased levels of content digitization, faster levels of IT service deployment, and continued service-level availability expectations are driving increased interest in cloud computing. This period of transformation from physical to virtual infrastructures, and then to secure private, public, and hybrid clouds, offers new opportunities for IT professionals to deliver agile, on-demand services built on a flexible pool of shared compute, network, and storage resources.

In close collaboration with technology leaders such as NetApp, Microsoft is unveiling a new Windows Server release to help accelerate this transition. Today, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced support for Windows Server 2012 with storage solutions for server and desktop virtualization, storage and availability, Web and application platform development, and private cloud deployment. For organizations of any size and in any industry, this close collaboration simplifies and accelerates how storage is pooled, provisioned, accessed, and managed in Windows environments.

In June, NetApp was named Microsoft Private Cloud Partner of the Year for 2012 in recognition of its commitment to helping organizations move to private cloud solutions. For more than 10 years, NetApp and Microsoft have teamed to develop and provide innovative storage and data management solutions for Microsoft technologies. Today more than 25,000 enterprise customers worldwide store, protect, and manage their Microsoft application data with NetApp® storage solutions.

"Windows Server 2012 is the category benchmark for organizations looking to migrate rapidly to cloud-ready infrastructures for application and service delivery," said Phil Brotherton, vice president, Enterprise Software Ecosystem, NetApp. "To help organizations realize the full value of their Microsoft technology investments, we continue to align our solution delivery roadmaps to address the critical challenges our mutual customers are facing, from increasing storage efficiency to maintaining high availability of servers, applications, and services."

"Windows Server 2012 is built from the ground up to be cloud ready and delivers important storage enhancements to help organizations reduce costs and achieve a whole new level of business agility," said Thomas Pfenning, general manager, File Server Foundation, Microsoft. "We’ve worked closely with NetApp with a focus on giving our mutual customers an efficient, flexible, and reliable IT foundation for delivering business-critical services."

NetApp Supports Windows Server 2012 Capabilities

NetApp offers the following support for key capabilities of Windows Server 2012:

• Storage. NetApp FAS and V-Series storage systems have been thoroughly tested, and are fully supported with Windows Server 2012, which means compatibility and confident deployment of applications. NetApp is committed to providing support for SMB 3.0 and Windows ODX — file storage and data transfer technologies used in Windows Server 2012 storage environments — and is launching a public beta program for this support in October 2012. For more information about this program, go tocommunities.netapp.com/groups/ontap-82-beta-program. NetApp is committed to making data storage and data movement easier by providing storage protocol choices (including support for FCP, FCoE, and iSCSI) that can make server consolidation and virtualization easier, enabling additional cost savings, greater storage efficiency, increased utilization, and simpler high-availability and disaster recovery solutions. NetApp is also a partner member of the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program and is developing prevalidated solutions for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V on the NetApp and Cisco FlexPod® architecture managed with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
• Server and desktop virtualization. NetApp Snapshot™ based backup and recovery with SnapManager for Hyper-V 1.2 and SnapDrive® for Windows 6.5 have achieved Windows Server 2012 logo certification and provide integrated data protection in Windows Server 2012 environments, speeding backup, restore, and disaster recovery operations in Microsoft Private Cloud and Hyper-V environments. NetApp’s support for the updated Clustered Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2012 and the new VHDx specification significantly reduce consumption of server and storage system resources, enabling large-scale virtualization and private cloud deployments. For desktop virtualization, NetApp storage systems offer an innovative set of features for efficient, reliable, and scalable VDI deployments, including deduplication, zero-space cloning, Flash Cache, and automation.
• Reduced infrastructure for cloud. With delivery expected later this year, a NetApp reference architecture built with Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 will tightly integrate with NetApp FAS data storage systems and V-Series open storage systems running NetApp Data ONTAP®. This validated architecture is structured to reduce application deployment times; increase utilization of virtual and physical resource pools; and provide end-to-end interoperability of compute, storage, and network resources in conjunction with the release of Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
• Management and automation. For private cloud implementations, NetApp OnCommand® Plug-in for Microsoft 3.2 is designed to provide integration with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 for dynamic scalability, automated workflow, on-demand self-service, and infrastructure orchestration in conjunction with the release of the updated management suite for Windows Server 2012 by Microsoft.
• Web and application platform. NetApp provides comprehensive support for application platforms on Windows Server 2012, including support of SQL Server 2012 data protection with SnapManager® 6.0 for SQL Server.

Additional Resources

• For more information about NetApp support for Microsoft: www.netapp.com/microsoftsolutions
• 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.

Brocade Delivers Comprehensive Fabric Networking Support for Windows Server 2012

Press release:

Brocade Delivers Comprehensive Fabric Networking Support for Windows Server 2012

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Brocade and Microsoft Collaboration Enables SAN and IP Networking Solutions to Support Private Cloud, Server and Network Virtualization

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 4, 2012) - Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) today announced support for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Server 2012 server operating system across all product lines, including the company's Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) and Ethernet fabric solutions. Together with Windows Server 2012, Brocade^® networks simplify operations and management for highly virtualized cloud data centers, which serve as the infrastructure for enterprises and service providers in supporting their key data center initiatives such as scale-out server virtualization, private cloud deployments and software-defined networking (SDN).

To ensure compatibility and enable new networking functionality with Windows Server 2012, Brocade has implemented enhancements across its SAN and Ethernet fabric switching and adapter products that help enable new features such as:

• Virtual Fibre Channel: Simplifies and enables direct access to ultra-reliable, high-performance Fibre Channel SAN storage by multiple-guest virtual machine (VM) partitions in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments. This enables distributed workload clustering and dynamic live migration of high-availability applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server across VMs without impacting workflows or requiring SAN reconfiguration.
• Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN): Enables Quality of Service (QoS) configuration from a Data Center Bridging (DCB) network. This allows users to initiate ad-hoc dedicated allocation of network bandwidth for high-demand, real-time applications and network services. DCN support has been added to the Brocade adapter family, with DCB enabled in all products.
• Network Virtualization Using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE): As a component of Brocade's network virtualization strategy, the company is reaffirming its commitment to provide future support for NVGRE in Brocade Ethernet fabric switches. NVGRE is the Microsoft-recommended virtualization mechanism for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Network Virtualization deployments.

These new capabilities offer enterprise IT and cloud providers new storage and networking options that help ensure non-stop operations, increase business agility and optimize application performance. Brocade also now supports interoperability and integration with Microsoft System Center 2012. By working closely with the System Center team to test and build integrations, organizations can easily manage any Brocade network as part of a complete Windows-based cloud environment.

"Windows Server 2012 was built from the cloud up and introduces innovations such as software-defined networking and NVGRE for network virtualization and isolation to help enable cloud deployments," said Mike Schutz, general manager, Windows Server Marketing, Microsoft. "From the early design stages of Windows Server 2012, Microsoft worked closely with Brocade to give customers new networking technologies such as software-defined networking via NVGRE and virtual Fibre Channel for more dynamic connectivity to storage resources."

Introduced today, Windows Server 2012 is a highly dynamic, available and cost-effective server platform that enables organizations to deploy private or hybrid clouds in a flexible IT environment that adapts to changing business needs. New and enhanced features provide high performance and scalability to enable a truly multitenant infrastructure where networking, compute, and storage resources are completely isolated between tenants on the same host. For hosting providers, Windows Server 2012 includes the ability to isolate tenants, gain insight into infrastructure resource usage, and provide new services to help create additional revenue streams. It also offers tools to help customers make the transition from on-premises to hosted environments, while continuing to provide the services and reliability demanded by enterprise, mid-market, and small businesses.

"To support next-generation cloud environments, many new networking technologies require support in the operating system to help organizations realize the full benefit of highly virtualized IT architectures," said Jason Nolet, vice president, Data Center Networking Group, at Brocade. "By working closely with the Microsoft engineering team in the early stages of the new OS's development, we have ensured that Brocade Ethernet and Fibre Channel fabric solutions work seamlessly with Windows Server 2012 as well as deliver innovative new networking functionality for highly virtualized, cloud-based data centers."

More Information

Video: Brocade Vice President Jason Nolet, Data Center and Enterprise Networking discusses Brocade's collaboration with Microsoft to help ensure the OS and network together can deliver important new networking functionality in the virtualized cloud-based data center.

Video: Mike Schutz, GM, Windows Server Marketing, explains why Microsoft chose to work with Brocade as a development partner for Windows Server 2012, including work in the areas of SDN and virtual fibre channel.

About Brocade

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

CA Technologies Supports Windows Server 2012 with Data Classification

Press Releases

CA Technologies Supports Windows Server 2012 with Data Classification

Company Extends Content Aware Identity and Access Management Helping Deliver More Precise Access Control for Windows Server

ISLANDIA, NY, September 4, 2012 – CA Technologies (CA: NASDAQ) today announced support for Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control. Integrating CA DataMinder™ Classification with Windows Server 2012 gives customers more precise access control of their data stored on Windows Server, helping to improve information security, reduce risk and meet compliance mandates.

Documents stored on a server that were once classified as non-sensitive can quickly change to contain sensitive or classified information throughout day-to-day operations. CA DataMinder Classification scans, locates and classifies sensitive content stored within Windows Server 2012, including intellectual property, financial information and personally identifiable information such as social security numbers, credit card numbers and other employee relevant data. When used with Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control, CA DataMinder Classification helps to deliver precise and fine-grained access control that enables business processes to continue while protecting the most critical information assets.

“Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control lets customers define central access policies at the organizational level and lets customers control access to data and achieve regulatory compliance,” said Andrew Conway, Director, Product Marketing, Enterprise Client, at Microsoft. “CA DataMinder Classification addresses the dynamic nature of data. By combining the content classification from CA DataMinder with the access policies set in Windows Server 2012, customers can better protect critical information from inappropriate use or disclosure.”

This integration extends CA Technologies Content-Aware Identity and Access Management (IAM) product strategy, which helps protect critical data from inappropriate use or disclosure by controlling users, their access and how they handle information. CA Technologies first delivered capability for Content-Aware IAM by associating content and data policies with identities and roles managed by CA IdentityMinder™ (formerly CA Identity Manager). It continued its Content-Aware direction earlier this year with a security solution for Microsoft SharePoint that enabled CA SiteMinder® to use content classification information for more precise Web access control.

“A core focus for a security professional is to ensure the right people have the right access to the right information. But information changes more quickly than access rights, which can leave organizations vulnerable to sensitive data leaks,” said Mike Denning, general manager, Security, CA Technologies. “Organizations need a layered security approach where information about the data is used as input for access policies to more precisely determine whether a user should be granted access to information.”

About CA Technologies

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services. Organizations leverage CA Technologies software and SaaS solutions to accelerate innovation, transform infrastructure and secure data and identities, from the data center to the cloud. Learn more about CA Technologies at www.ca.com.

Windows Server 2012 Powers the Cloud OS

Press release:

Windows Server 2012 Powers the Cloud OS

Sept 04, 2012

New server is built from the cloud up for the modern datacenter.

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REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 4, 2012 — Today in a global online launch event Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Server and Tools Business, announced the general availability of Windows Server 2012. In his keynote speech, Nadella described how Windows Server 2012 is a cornerstone of the Cloud OS, which provides one consistent platform across private, hosted and public clouds.

“The operating system has always been the heartbeat of IT and is now undergoing a renaissance in the new world of continuous cloud services, connected devices and big data,” Nadella said. “Microsoft’s unique legacy in the most widely used operating systems, applications and cloud services positions us to deliver the Cloud OS, based on Windows Server and Windows Azure, helping customers achieve a datacenter without boundaries.”

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Enabling the Modern Datacenter

Microsoft built Windows Server 2012 from the cloud up, applying its experience operating global datacenters that rely on hundreds of thousands of servers to deliver more than 200 cloud services. Windows Server 2012 expands the definition of a server operating system, with significant new advancements in virtualization, storage, networking and automation. Hundreds of new features can help customers achieve a transformational leap in the speed, scale and power of their datacenters and applications. In combination with Windows Azure and System Center, Windows Server 2012 empowers customers to manage and deliver applications and services across private, hosted and public clouds.

Customers Find Success With Windows Server 2012

Customers can use their existing skills and investments in systems management, application development, database, identity and virtualization to take advantage of Windows Server 2012 and realize the promise of cloud computing. Many enterprise customers are already seeing tremendous value in early deployments. A survey of 70 early adopter customers from across the globe revealed that they expect, on average, 52 percent reduction in downtime, 41 percent reduction in workload deployment time, and 15 hours of productivity time saved per year, per employee. 91 percent of the companies surveyed expect a reduction in server administration labor, and 88 percent expect reduction in network administration labor.*

Menzies Aviation, an airline passenger and cargo handling company that employs more than 17,000 people, is using Windows Server 2012 to provide identity access management and information access policies to its employees as it rapidly incorporates newly acquired businesses.

“We are very impressed by Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft’s overall solution to help us manage our systems and applications across our private cloud environments as they scale with our business,” said Martin Gallington, senior vice president of IT at Menzies Aviation. “This is a dramatic leap forward, matched by a simple, cost-effective pricing model.”

Equifax is a global information solutions provider that organizes and assimilates data on more than 500 million consumers and 81 million businesses worldwide. It now counts on Windows Server 2012 for improved reliability and uptime of its information services to clients.

“Windows Server 2012 revolutionizes how we can operate our datacenter, allowing us to better meet our commitments,” said Bryan Garcia, chief technology officer at Equifax. “The new high availably technologies help us deliver ‘always-on’ applications, and we’re betting on Hyper-V as a critical component of our private cloud strategy. We are gaining tremendous efficiencies, which translate into more time to innovate for company growth.”

More information about Windows Server 2012 and the Cloud OS is available here. Read Satya Nadella’s post on The Official Microsoft Blog here. The conversation on Twitter can be followed at #WinServer.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* “Windows Server 2012 Rapid Deployment Program: TCO Study Whitepaper,” Microsoft Corp., June 2012

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.

Broadcom Introduces New Server Network Virtualization Acceleration Technology for VXLAN Cloud-Scale Networks

Press release from Broadcom:

Broadcom Introduces New Server Network Virtualization Acceleration Technology for VXLAN Cloud-Scale Networks

Industry's Most Complete End-to-End Platform Solution Improves Server Performance by More than 55 Percent(1)

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News Highlights:

• Most complete portfolio of controller and switch solutions for VXLAN cloud-scale networks
• Delivers advanced functionality needed for large scale VXLAN multi-tenant network deployment
• Enables enhanced scaling for large scale network deployment                            

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, today announced its NetXtreme^® II server network virtualization (NV) acceleration technology for VXLAN implementations, improving server performance by more than 55 percent. Together with Broadcom's new StrataXGS^®Trident II Switch Series with Smart NV technology, Broadcom offers the industry's most complete end-to-end platform solution for VXLAN cloud-scale networks. Visit www.broadcom.com to learn more.

Virtualized cloud-scale networks with multiple tenants are growing at unprecedented rates while exceeding the limits of existing network architectures. VXLAN innovation addresses this need by decoupling the physical and logical address space through the creation of overlay networks. Broadcom has revolutionized the ability to scale multi-tenant networks with VXLAN, enabling logical, software-based networks that can be created on demand and increase the scale of virtual machines on the physical server while maintaining Quality of Service (QoS).

Through VMware's collaboration with Broadcom and other leading ecosystem vendors, VXLANs are expected to become the default standard for multi-tenant cloud-scale networks. With the industry's most complete portfolio of solutions optimized for VXLAN, Broadcom has broken through traditional silicon and software barriers to enable the fast, fat and flat virtualized network required for true scalability in next generation cloud-scale networks.

About the Broadcom NetXtreme Portfolio

Broadcom's NetXtreme Ethernet solutions improve virtualization by converging data and storage networks on a common 10GbE fabric. Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet adapters deliver line rate throughput that is 37 percent faster than the nearest converged network adapter (CNA) competitor, together with full support of iSCSI and FCoE offload storage protocols, capable of delivering up to 1.5 million iSCSI input/output operations per second (IOPS), or 2.5 million FCoE IOPS with superior CPU efficiency².

Availability

Broadcom's server network virtualization acceleration technology is now sampling. Broadcom NetXtreme II Ethernet solutions are currently shipping with multiple top tier OEM servers — including Dell PowerEdge 12^th Generation, HP ProLiant Gen8, IBM, Cisco, NEC and Hitachi.

Broadcom will demonstrate its full line of solutions for VXLAN at VMworld^® 2012, August 26 - 30 in San Francisco's Moscone Center, 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.

Quotes:

Allwyn Sequeira, Vice President and CTO, Networking and Security, VMware

"With broad support by companies such as Broadcom, we are pleased to see organizations use VXLAN-based solutions to take advantage of new levels of data center automation, agility, and efficiency. The end-to-end solutions that Broadcom is offering with both controller and switch support for VXLAN creates great value for cloud operators deploying virtualized multi-tenant networks."

Brian Payne, Executive Director, PowerEdge Servers, Dell

"As a long-standing technology partner, Dell is collaborating with Broadcom on support for VXLAN environments to enable breakthrough scalability for customers who need it. Dell is meeting the challenges customers face in architecting and deploying next generation and virtualized data centers with the support of technologies like Broadcom's new server network virtualization acceleration technology."

McLeod Glass, Director of Mainstream Systems Marketing, Industry Standards Servers, HP

"Data center managers leveraging VXLAN technology are seeking to lower CAPEX costs while increasing network performance for cloud computing. Combining Broadcom NetXtreme II controllers with HP ProLiant Gen8 servers enable customers to lower costs by leveraging their existing resources more efficiently through increased scalability and network performance."

Rohit Mehra, Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, IDC

"The deployment of flexible networking solutions and architectures such as VXLAN is expected to accelerate the adoption of multi-tenant cloud solutions. Broadcom's collaboration with other ecosystem partners to draft and standardize the VXLAN specification, as well as their investment in new technologies to accelerate the performance of VXLAN implementations demonstrates their strong commitment to the cloud market."

Vinod Lakhani, General Manager, High Speed Controllers, Broadcom Corporation

"Through our collaboration with VMware and other partners, we were provided with the unique opportunity to co-author and standardize VXLAN implementation and leverage this knowledge to enhance innovation throughout our portfolio. Cloud and enterprise IT architects can now leverage the combination of VXLAN and Broadcom's complete portfolio of NetXtreme controllers and StrataXGS switch technologies to increase performance and reduce total cost of ownership."

Resources: 
¹ Based on Broadcom independent testing of Server NV Acceleration technology on VXLAN
² Demartek Performance Report
NetXtreme Enterprise Adapters Feature Page 
NetXtreme Ethernet Solutions for Dell
NetXtreme Ethernet Solutions for HP
ESG: Broadcom Delivers NetXtreme Performance

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:

Business Applications Run Up to 90% Faster with New Server Cache Solutions from NetApp and Its Partners

NetApp Unveils Flash Accel, Extends Technology Alliance Program, and Signs Resale Agreement to Integrate Server Cache Solutions with Data ONTAP for End-to-End Storage Management

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 21, 2012 — With storage capacity requirements increasing at exponential rates, Flash memory continues to gain popularity as a powerful complement to traditional hard-disk storage. Its ability to dramatically break through the input/output latency barrier—a key inhibitor to fast and scalable applications—makes an efficient and flexible Flash strategy a critical part of an agile data infrastructure. From their server to their back-end storage, cost- and performance-conscious system architects must balance how Flash is used within their organizations to maximize application performance, minimize rising IT costs, preserve high availability, protect data, and simplify management.

Today, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) extended its Virtual Storage Tiering (VST) strategy by introducing NetApp® Flash Accel™, expanded its Technology Alliance Program to include server caching hardware and software partners, and unveiled a reseller relationship with Fusion-io. This comprehensive strategy update to VST enables end-to-end storage management for customers with physical and virtualized environments, from the user-accessible Flash memory on the server to the cost-effective hard-disk storage on the back end. Flash Accel will be on display at the NetApp booth, #1402, at VMworld San Francisco on August 26–30. 

VST also creates new opportunities for partners to work with NetApp to develop innovative technologies that integrate closely with the capabilities of Data ONTAP® software, NetApp’s leading storage management operating system. Through Data ONTAP and other VST innovations such as NetApp Flash Cache and NetApp Flash Pool, IT administrators can now manage server-level, controller-level, and disk-level Flash memory and back-end hard-disk storage usage within a single data management infrastructure. This lets them meet service levels and gain greater storage efficiencies by enabling the right storage media to be used at the right time for the right data.

NetApp Flash Accel Can Accelerate Application Performance by Up to 90% by Turning Server Flash into “Hot” Data Storage
NetApp Flash Accel can speed application performance by turning server-side Flash into a cache for storing “hot,” frequently accessed data. NetApp testing shows that by storing up to 2TB of hot data in server Flash memory, application and server latency can be reduced by up to 90%^[1] and IOPS are increased by 80%. And, by off-loading “hot” IOPS at the server, Flash Accel helps reduce demand on back-end FAS storage.

As part of a comprehensive Virtual Storage Tiering strategy, server caching delivers:

• Application and Server Performance Acceleration: Accelerates enterprise applications and server performance by as much as 90% by deploying server cache on virtual machines.
• Highest Levels of Data Integrity and Reliability: Coordinates with Data ONTAP back-end platforms so that a persistent copy of all data is always stored on the back-end Data ONTAP platform, benefiting from the high availability and data protection of Data ONTAP; relies on the high availability and data protection of Data ONTAP.
• Coherency and Integration with Data ONTAP: End-to-end data coherency issues are identified and resolved, enabling deployment of high-confidence solutions.
• Broad Use Case Coverage: Customers can deploy solutions over a wide range of applications and operating environments using NetApp validated partner solutions.
• Maximum Flexibility: NetApp validated solutions provide maximum flexibility, allowing customers to deploy any server caching solutions (software and hardware) that have been validated by NetApp.

In addition to the above, Flash Accel has these key features:

• Flexibility at the Server Level: Provides the freedom to choose any server PCI-e flash card or SSD flash device.
• End-to-End Intelligent Data Coherency: Addresses data coherency issues that can cause data corruption using automated and efficient data coherency detection and correction software technology.
• Cache Persistency and Durability: Preserves cache content consistently with applications in the event of server and VM reboot and crashes so that cache restarts in a warm state; enables consistently high performance.

NetApp Expands Alliance Partner Ecosystem to Include Server-Caching Partners 
Reinforcing its commitment to enabling an open partner ecosystem for intelligent caching, NetApp is expanding its Alliance Partner Program to embrace hardware and software server-caching partners looking to develop solutions with NetApp. Partners can submit and qualify server-caching solutions as "NetApp validated” in accordance with established criteria for coherence and integration with Data ONTAP and Flash Accel. Among the first partners to submit server-caching solutions for qualification are Fusion-io, LSI, Micron, SanDisk Enterprise Storage Solutions, STEC, and Virident.

NetApp, together with its partners, will provide the widest coverage for its customers’ infrastructures as they deploy server-side caching to deliver increased ROI. This will include the broadest support for different hypervisors and operating systems. NetApp validated solutions will enable quick deployment of partner-specific innovations in the rapidly evolving server flash and caching market.

NetApp Signs Technology Reseller Agreement with Fusion-io
As part of its commitment to providing customers with a single source for Virtual Storage Tier technologies, NetApp has entered into a resale agreement with Fusion-io (NYSE: FIO), a leader in Flash memory solutions. NetApp will resell Fusion-io ioMemory platform products and two server caching software products: ioTurbine™ for virtualized environments and Direct Cache™ for non-virtualized environments.

Revlon Looks to NetApp Flash Accel to Run Applications at Peak Performance
In recent years, global cosmetics company Revlon has undergone a remarkable IT transformation: a move to a completely virtualized environment that enables Revlon IT to deliver more services faster, better, and cheaper. It now has more than 530 applications running on its private cloud, which supports more than 15,000 automated application moves a month and 14,000 transactions a second. To keep its applications running at peak performance, Revlon requires rapid access to data across the storage area network. In collaboration with NetApp, Revlon has been testing Flash Accel to reduce latency, improve server and storage performance, and simplify storage management.

"Revlon and NetApp share the vision that storage is a critical foundation for a virtualized agile data infrastructure," said David Giambruno, senior vice president and chief information officer, Revlon. "Currently, Revlon has more than 530 and counting business-critical applications, including SAP®, multiple enterprise databases, multiple ERP and MRP systems, financials, warehouse management, Microsoft® Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint®, and virtual desktops, running on VMware® virtual machines. To ensure that these applications run at peak performance requires an approach to storage that minimizes the latency between operations. We've been testing Flash Accel from NetApp and have already seen considerable efficiency and performance gains from our applications that for our business means that our scientists and marketers have greater access to the data that drives the creation and sales of our glamorous products."

Additional Supporting Quotes:

• Tim Russell, Vice President and General Manager, Data Lifecyle Ecosystem Group, NetApp 
  "Creating an agile data infrastructure depends heavily on anticipating and managing application performance needs. NetApp Flash Accel and caching products from our partners add a persistent and durable storage layer on the server, which, when used as part of our Virtual Storage Tiering approach, leads to the automatic management of data from storage to the application based on affinity and workload. This results in dramatic application and server performance boosts that will accelerate how business is conducted using virtualized environments.”

NetApp Alliance Technology Partners

• Neil Carson, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President, Fusion-io 
  "NetApp’s open approach to partnering with industry leaders through its Technology Alliance Program will provide customers with efficient solutions that will enable them to achieve performance gains with Fusion-io software and hardware at a fraction of the cost of legacy systems. NetApp's innovative approach to Flash with Virtual Storage Tiering, combined with software like Fusion ioTurbine or directCache software and Fusion ioMemory hardware, uniquely enables IT administrators to scale performance on demand in response to ever-changing business requirements.”
• Gary Smerdon, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Accelerated Solutions Division, LSI Corporation 
  "Server side flash-based caching for application acceleration is one of the most exciting and compelling trends in IT today. As a leading provider of server-based acceleration solutions with our extensive Nytro™ product portfolio of PCIe flash card solutions, LSI is pleased to be working with NetApp and their Flash Accel server caching software to deliver dramatic application acceleration improvements for customers’ data-intensive workloads and mission-critical datacenter applications.”
• Greg Goetz, Vice President and General Manager, SanDisk Enterprise Storage Solutions
  "Collaborating with NetApp allows us to work together to provide Flash memory–based solutions that optimize storage performance and address the problem of I/O latency in the server. Combining NetApp products and our FlashSoft software will deliver significant improvements in application performance and VM density.”
• Ali Zadeh, Corporate Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager, STEC, Inc. 
  "STEC, like NetApp, is committed to delivering intelligent, efficient, high-performance hardware and software solutions to the enterprise storage market. Our SSD-caching software extends this commitment by fully supporting NetApp’s Virtual Storage Tiering and server-caching initiatives which will enable greater cohesion between virtualized enterprise storage systems and host-based applications. As a member of the Alliance Partner Program, STEC looks forward to further advancing SSD technology in NetApp environments and accelerating enterprise storage across an ever-increasing range of applications.”

Availability
Flash Accel will be available in December 2012. Fusion-io products being resold by NetApp are available now.

Additional Resources

• Watch a video on the benefits of NetApp Flash Accel: www.netapp.com/us/library/videos.html?videoId=1788244667001
• 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.