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VFrame is the industry's first truly open solution for utility
computing. With this software suite and Topspin switches, data
center managers can build their own utility computing data center
out of industry-standard servers, storage, applications, and
management tools. VFrame seamlessly integrates these components
across Topspin's standards-based server switching infrastructure.
Today's data centers see increased demand for server processing,
I/O, and storage-at a time when budgets are shrinking. The
constant mandate is to do more with less.
However, legacy server architecture can get in the way. Server
resources come in fixed packages, preventing sharing and limiting
flexibility. To meet demand, the data center manager is forced
to dedicate servers to applications, underutilizing processors
and I/O. As new applications are deployed and demands increase,
the wasted resources only increase.
Server virtualization dramatically reduces this expense by
making resource sharing possible. Logical pools of physical
server, storage, and I/O resources can be matched to applications
on-demand based on immediate business needs.
Server virtualization allows data center managers
to:
- Share
CPU and I/O Resources
- Add
High Availability
- Reduce
Costs and Eliminate Waste
- Improve
Application Performance
Topspin
provides the industry's first truly open solution for utility
computing, allowing customers to choose whatever industry-standard
servers, storage, and management tools they prefer and seamlessly
integrate these components together across Topspin's standards-based
server switching infrastructure.
Topspin virtualizes the physical server beneath the operating
system and application, enabling stateless servers for reliable,
flexible deployments. It enables any server, storage, or networking
vendor, as well as seamlessly enhancing third-party provisioning
and monitoring applications.
Topspin's Server virtualization solution includes four major
building blocks:
- High
Performance Server-to-Server Connectivity: Topspin's
programmable server switch provides the fabric for server
virtualization. Central to the server switch is a new industry
standard technology called InfiniBand, which offers extremely
high bandwidth and low latency ideal for interconnecting
servers.
- Seamless
I/O and Storage Connectivity: Topspin's unique
Topology Transparency software, coupled with Topspin's Ethernet
and Fibre Channel Gateways, enable the high performance
server fabric to seamlessly connect with existing LANs and
SANs with no management or infrastructure changes required.
- Virtualization
and Boot Services: These capabilities allow standard
diskless servers to be deployed in a "stateless" fashion
and enable customers to provision any combination of application,
operating system, storage, and I/O resources to a server
on-demand.
- VFrameT
server virtualization software suite: VFrame embeds
policy and provisioning intelligence into the server switch
hardware. This intelligence enables the server switch has
the intelligence to automatically create virtual servers
made up of the right combination of resources at the right
time, based on policies a data center manager defines. As
conditions change, the server switch can be programmed to
add and remove resources from virtual servers as necessary.
With this new flexibility, Topspin allows data center managers
to easily deploy new applications, re-purpose servers from
one function to another, and respond rapidly to server or
network failures, dramatically reducing downtime.
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