Solarflare Demonstrates Line Rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet for Virtual Machines with XenEnterprise v4 at VMworld

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- (VMWORLD, Booth #1325) Solarflare Communications, the leader in standards-based 10GbE silicon and reference designs, will demonstrate the industry's highest-performance network stack for virtual machines with its 10GBASE-T reference design NIC, running on XenSource's XenEnterprise v4 virtualization platform. The demo will showcase performance advantages of Solarflare's virtualization-optimized Solarstorm(TM) Ethernet controller and the ability of XenEnterprise v4 to exploit virtualization-enhanced hardware. The solution will be on display at VMworld, September 11-13 at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

The demo features Solarflare's innovative 10GbE guest networking acceleration for virtualized platforms, combined with its stateless offload model and standards-based 10GBASE-T support. The company's server controller delivers true 10Gbps performance to virtualized enterprise applications, while maintaining low power and reducing cost. Solarflare's Solarstorm silicon for XenMotion(TM) live relocation also delivers greater agility and resilience for data center managers.

"XenEnterprise v4 offers superb performance and ease of use for Windows and Linux virtual machines," said Simon Crosby, XenSource's CTO. "Solarflare has been an important partner in developing the fast I/O architecture for Xen, and this demonstration of line-rate IP and iSCSI for XenEnterprise virtual machines is proof of our ability to exploit leading virtualization-optimized I/O devices to deliver the highest-performance virtualization platform in the industry."

"10 Gigabit Ethernet, especially 10GBASE-T, is crucial in these environments to keep up with increased I/O demands on servers while maintaining ease of use and low cost," said Bruce Tolley, vice president of marketing at Solarflare. "Solarflare's products are optimized for use on the robust XenEnterprise v4 platform, making data centers capable of supporting the increasing adoption of virtualization."

About XenEnterprise v4

Introduced in August 2007, XenEnterprise v4 delivers an open, proven and supported solution for server virtualization. The solution helps dramatically reduce server hardware and operating costs by decreasing power, space, cooling and system maintenance needs. Offering high-performance virtualization within an easy-to-use platform, XenSource supports both Windows and Linux servers. XenSource products are based on the open source Xen(R) hypervisor and offer built-in virtual machine lifecycle management, storage virtualization, resource pooling and XenMotion(TM) live relocation at low price and high performance. XenSource products are being adopted worldwide by enterprises seeking to increase server utilization, support server consolidation and reduce total cost of ownership.

About Solarflare 10GbE Products

The Solarstorm(TM) Ethernet controller delivers the optimal balance of performance, power and price, enabling the widespread implementation of 10GbE in data centers and enterprise networks. The combination of Solarflare's Solarstorm(TM) 10GbE Controller and the 10Xpress(R) 10GBASE-T PHY enables NIC and server OEM customers to bring 10G server adapters to market at about the same cost as quad 1G server adapters.

About Solarflare Communications, Inc.

Solarflare Communications is a semiconductor company delivering the next level of high-performance 10GbE. As the leading provider of standards-based 10GbE silicon and reference designs, Solarflare delivers robust and power- efficient solutions that are cost effective and easy to deploy. Now real and ready for primetime, Solarflare 10GbE makes possible next-generation applications such as streaming rich media, Web 2.0, data center virtualization and network convergence. Solarflare is working with key industry partners and customers to ensure interoperability and drive a complete ecosystem. The privately held company is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. with a development center in Cambridge, UK. For more information, visit http://www.solarflare.com.

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