Server I/O is comprised of all the I/O adapters, cables, and rack switching hardware required to connect servers to the network (LAN / WAN) and storage (SAN) infrastructure. More specifically, these I/O resources include the I/O adapters and hard disks inside the servers; network and storage aggregation switches in the rack, and the associated network / storage cables connecting servers to the aggregation switches.

• Separation of I/O resources — providing management independence.
• Consolidation of the I/O resources into pools — increasing the utilization, saving cost, power and space.
• Virtualization — emulating the original I/O functions as "virtual" functions to avoid software disruption.

Virtensys VIO-4000 series of I/O Virtualization appliances remove physical I/O adapters from servers, leaving the servers as pure compute and memory engines. These resources are pooled and consolidated within the VIO-4000 appliance which creates a virtual image of each of the I/O adapter (virtual adapter) that is presented to each server. The virtual adapter exactly emulates the physical adapter and thus requires no changes to the server, OS, application or device driver.

The VIO-4000 appliance shares physical adapters and dynamically allocate them across many physical servers with no loss of throughput. The VIO-4000 appliance connects to each server using a single PCI Express® (PCIe) cable that connects directly to the server native PCIe bus, thus removing the need to deploy any new network in the data center. The PCIe cable replaces the multiple network and storage cables per server that were required in traditional I/O deployments. The VIO-4000 appliance eliminates the network and storage access layer switches as these switching functions are performed by the VIO-4000 appliance.

Virtensys introduced a family of I/O Virtualization appliances: the VIO-4000 series. There are three members in this series:

VIO-4001: I/O Virtualization appliance that virtualizes 4x 10Gb Ethernet (LAN) and 4x 8G Fibre Channel (SAN) connectivity to the servers.

VIO-4004: I/O Virtualization appliance that virtualizes 8x 10Gb Ethernet (LAN) connectivity to the servers.

VIO-4008: I/O Virtualization appliance that virtualizes 4x 10Gb Ethernet (LAN) and 2x 6Gbps local virtualized Direct Attached Storage to the servers. The VIO-4008 includes 8 disk drive bays which can be populated and shared between the connected servers.

Virtensys VIO-4000 series of appliances enable the creation of an I/O cloud. A single domain within which the entire data center’s server I/O resources are managed as a unique entity. In this environment, any individual server’s I/O profile can be changed and dynamically moved to another server without any physical reconfiguration and without disruption to service. This allows an IT manager to dynamically provision servers and easily move an application from one server to another, thereby improving data center flexibility, manageability and agility.

The VIO-4000 I/O Virtualization series of appliances provide the industry’s best price / performance and lowest energy usage for server connectivity:

• Up to 70% reduction in I/O equipment costs.
• Up to 70% reduction in I/O power consumption.

Reduce data center management costs by up to 60%:

• Reduction in server deployment and provisioning time from hours to minutes.
• Change servers’ connectivity to LAN and SAN without any physical reconfiguration.

Enhance data center flexibility and agility to respond to dynamic business needs:

• Dynamic allocation of LAN and SAN connectivity and bandwidth to servers depending on application needs.
• Dynamic repurposing of servers depending on workload needs.

Can be deployed immediately and without disruption to the existing servers, network, storage and management infrastructures:

• Doesn’t require the deployment of a new network in the data center.
• Doesn’t require any changes to the servers, OS, applications or I/O adapters.

Enhance data center reliability:

• Up to 70% reduction in the number of I/O adapters, hard drives, switch ports and cables.
• Automated and remote management processes.
• Reduction in human intervention.

Extend data center life cycle:

• Server footprint reduction.
• Increase network and storage resource utilization.
• Decrease power consumption.