Emulex has announced that its LightPulse LP21000 family of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) have been tested and found to be compatible for use with IBM Systems x3650(7979), x3655(7943) and x3755(7163) series servers. Emulex CNAs enable the consolidation of server I/O, allowing IBM customers to reduce the number of network interface cards and cables used by servers by as much as 50 percent, which in turn helps lower power and cooling costs.

"With the largest installed base of Fibre Channel HBAs in IBM SANs worldwide, it is essential that Emulex's family of LightPulse FCoE CNAs are compatible with IBM servers, so that customers can make a seamless transition to the next-generation data center," said Taufik Ma, vice president of product marketing, Emulex Corporation. "The ability to reduce data center complexity, while providing the same level of reliability, performance and manageability as Emulex's Fibre Channel HBAs, makes extending SAN connectivity to other parts of the data center using FCoE technology a prudent approach to data center consolidation and convergence."

The Emulex LP21000 family of CNAs enables customers to further consolidate their data centers by converging Fibre Channel and networking traffic over a 10Gb/s Enhanced Ethernet network, resulting in more streamlined IT operations and higher staff productivity. Emulex FCoE CNAs leverage field-proven Fibre Channel SAN technology, allowing customers to extend their existing investments in infrastructure, management, training and processes. Emulex CNAs also leverage a common driver model and the familiar Emulex HBAnyware management suite.

Emulex CNAs also support Emulex's Virtual HBA technology with industry-standard N-Port ID Virtualization support, allowing customers to "virtualize" SAN connections so that each virtual machine has independent access to its own protected storage. With Emulex NPIV-enabled FCoE CNAs, customers have the ability to track and chargeback storage utilization at the virtual machine level using Emulex's HBAnyware management suite.