IBM Virtual Fabric for System x

Overview

When it comes to I/O, data centers face more challenges than ever before, including:

Expensive servers configurations with four or more NIC connections
Applications requiring more than 1Gb but less than 10Gb of network bandwidth
Demand to reduce capital and infrastructure costs
Finite power envelope and rising energy prices
Focus on ROI with future flexibility to adjust bandwidth per NIC as demand require
Demand for lower latency and better end user experience
More layers of complexity in the data center
Higher levels of security and availability

Welcome Virtual Fabric from IBM, which provides fast, flexible and reliable I/O solutions that fit into your existing data center and offers you a new way to overcome these challenges. This new and innovative solution based on Emulex adapters and IBM BNT RackSwitch products is different than other vNIC solutions in the fact that it carves up dedicated pipes between the adapter and the switch. This solution is built on industry standards providing maximum performance in both directions while allowing for pipes to be allocated at any speed from 1GbE to 10GbE. Building a Dynamic Infrastructure today with the IBM Virtual Fabric for System x also allows for advanced levels of security and higher levels of availability per virtual NIC by leveraging virtual pipes, which isolate vNIC from each other.

Features and benefits

Reduce Cost & Complexity: Leveraging a single 10GbE dual-port adapter and creating virtual pipes to fewer upstream switch ports help drive out cost and complexity in their IT infrastructure by requiring up to 75% fewer adapters, cables and upstream switch ports. It is also important to note this can be leveraged across multiple application environments not just virtualization. When compared to leveraging multiple 1GbE ports, clients could see:

Potential of over 40% acquisition cost savings
Up to 75% reduction in power consumption
Significantly simpler management with less cabling and fewer components to manage
Easy integration into existing clients setups (virtual or non-virtual)

Performance: Leveraging Emulex and IBM BNT Virtual Fabric provides extreme levels of performance versus multiple 1GbE implementation or other vendors vNIC implementations with:

The creation of virtual pipes between the adapter and switch, helping delivery predictable and maximum performance per vNIC
Low latency at approximately 680 nanoseconds for the IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124
From 2.5 to 10 times more I/O bandwidth per severs compared
Up to 20% more virtual machines per server when compared to equivalent 10Gb adapters
Faster data transfer between virtual machines (VMs) and faster backup in case of disaster recovery

Scalable and Flexible: ability to adjust as your requirements by:

Selecting the number of ports that you need 2, 4, 6 or 8
Being able to allocate the exact bandwidth needed for each vNIC
Having the ability to repurpose your servers and dynamically reassign bandwidth allocation as needed with no server downtime

High Availability and Security: With the consolidation of multiple VM’s per server, the demands for security and availability are more critical and IBM Virtual Fabric solutions using Emulex and IBM BNT innovations help:

Reduce security concerns by isolating vNIC’s from each other delivering similar security levels as having separate I/O adapters
Maximize up-time by isolating vNIC’s from each other in addition to separating Virtual Groups. Clients have the comfort knowing the unlikely event of a vNIC failure will not impact other vNICs.
- Intelligent Failure Monitoring to enable automatic failover between physical or virtual ports in an event of uplink port failure
- Easy recovery from failures even when operating with virtual ports