Emulex Announces Performance Optimized 16GFC HBAs Supporting PCIe 3.0 and Delivering Over 1.2 Million IOPS

SAN FRANCISCO and COSTA MESA, Calif., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ORACLE OPENWORLD 2012 -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) today announced the availability of its second generation of LightPulse® 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). The LPe16000B series of 16GFC HBAs are the only adapters on the market that offer PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 support to complement the latest high performance Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family-based server platforms, industry-leading 1.2 million I/O operations per second (IOPS) on a single port,1 which is six times faster than current HBAs being offered by Emulex's nearest competitor,2 and BlockGuard™ data integrity offload for enhanced data protection.

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"16GFC products are ramping faster than expected, and adoption is being driven by greater virtual machine densities, solid state disks (SSDs) and next generation PCIe 3.0 capable servers," said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. "Emulex is leading the 16GFC HBA market with more than 76 percent revenue market share3 and by announcing its second generation of 16GFC HBAs before its primary competitor has even begun shipping its first 16GFC HBA."

Key features and benefits of the new Emulex LPe16000B series of 16GFC adapters include:

  • Market-Leading Performance: Emulex LPe16000B HBAs deliver over 1.2 million IOPS on a single port, providing more than six times the IOPS, four times the power efficiency and over twice the data throughput of 8GFC HBAs,1 enabling improved asset utilization and the associated capital and operational expenditure savings. Emulex LPe16000B HBAs provide the fastest FC connectivity available, making them the ideal choice for connecting to today's heavily virtualized servers, lightning fast SSDs, growing databases and next generation servers to FC storage area networks (SANs).
  • PCIe 3.0 Support: The LPe16000B HBAs are the only Fibre Channel (FC) adapters on the market that support PCIe 3.0, which provides a faster I/O bus, more PCIe lanes and increased I/O bandwidth, enabling the LPe16000B HBAs to match the performance capabilities of server platforms based on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family. The LPe16000B HBAs are also backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0 and 4 and 8GFC infrastructures.
  • Exclusive BlockGuard Data Protection: Emulex 16GFC HBAs include exclusive BlockGuard technology which supports the T10 Protection Information (T10 PI) standard, providing enhanced data protection against silent data corruption. The LPe16000B HBAs also include high performance, hardware offload of data integrity checks, eliminating the 30 percent performance penalty of software-enabled T10 PI.4
  • Simplified and Time-Saving I/O Management: With a single driver model, the Emulex 16GFC HBAs can be controlled, configured and managed from a single console using Emulex OneCommand® Manager, enabling enterprise scalability with time-saving features that provide more than twice the adapter management functionality and take half the time to install and manage compared to other I/O solutions.3

"Emulex continues to address customers' evolving architectures by offering the performance, management and security characteristics needed to support virtualized servers, especially those with high VM densities, SSD and flash-based storage and cloud deployments taking root in the enterprise," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "The new Emulex LPe16000B HBAs provides significant improvements over what was already a very impressive 16Gb Fibre Channel adapter."

"The dramatic increase in the data-flow through datacenters is driving the need for PCIe 3.0 technology," said Jim Pappas, director of Technology Initiatives, Intel. "PCIe 3.0 capable products such as Emulex's LPe16000B HBAs provide the increased I/O bandwidth required to match the performance capabilities of server platforms based on the new Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family."

Emulex's LPe16000B single and LPe16002B dual-port 16GFC HBAs will be available this quarter. For more information, please visit our 16GFC solution page.

  1. Demartek Emulex LPe16000B 16Gb Fibre Channel HBA Evaluation, October 2012
  2. HBA Comparison Table
  3. Crehan Research, Server-class Adapter and LOM Market Share Report, 2Q 2012
  4. Based on Emulex Labs Benchmark Testing

Tweet This: Emulex Announces Performance Optimized #16GFC HBAs w PCIe 3.0 Support at @OracleOpenWorld: http://bit.ly/OSIbAC #PCI3.0 #oow12

Read the Demartek Emulex LPe16000B 16Gb Fibre Channel HBA Evaluation, October 2012

Read the ESG Product Brief - Emulex Targets High Performance Environments with LPe16000B, October 2012

Read the Emulex Labs blog on today's news here.

Follow Emulex on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/emulex

Learn more about Emulex: http://www.emulex.com

About Emulex

Emulex, the leader in converged networking solutions, provides enterprise-class connectivity for servers, networks and storage devices within the data center. The company's product portfolio of Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters, 10Gb Ethernet Network Interface Cards, Ethernet-based Converged Network Adapters, controllers, embedded bridges and switches, and connectivity management software are proven, tested and trusted by the world's largest and most demanding IT environments. Emulex solutions are used and offered by the industry's leading server and storage OEMs including, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Huawei, IBM, NEC, NetApp and Oracle. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif. and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. More information about Emulex (NYSE:ELX) is available at www.Emulex.com.

Emulex Safe Harbor Statement

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. Emulex wishes to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include among others, intellectual property claims, with or without merit, that could result in costly litigation, cause product shipment delays, require Emulex to indemnify customers, or require Emulex to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, which may or may not be available. Furthermore, Emulex has in the past obtained, and may be required in the future to obtain, licenses of technology owned by other parties. Emulex cannot be certain that the necessary licenses will be available or that they can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. If Emulex were to fail to obtain such royalty or licensing agreements in a timely manner and on reasonable terms, Emulex's business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Ongoing lawsuits, such as the action brought by Broadcom Corporation ("Broadcom"), present inherent risks, any of which could have a material adverse effect on Emulex's business, financial condition, or results of operations. Such potential risks include continuing expenses of litigation, risk of loss of patent rights and/or monetary damages, risk of injunction against the sale of products incorporating the technology in question, counterclaims, attorneys' fees, incremental costs associated with product or component redesigns, and diversion of management's attention from other business matters. With respect to the Broadcom litigation, such potential risks also include the availability of an adequate sunset period of time to make design changes, the ability to implement any design changes, the availability of customer resources to complete any re-qualification or re-testing that may be needed, the ability to maintain favorable working relationships with Emulex suppliers of serializer/deserializer (SerDes) modules and the ability to obtain a settlement that does not put Emulex at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, the fact that the economy generally, and the technology and storage segments specifically, have been in a state of uncertainty makes it difficult to determine if past experience is a good guide to the future and makes it impossible to determine if markets will grow or shrink in the short term. The current economic downturn and the resulting disruptions in world credit and equity markets that are creating economic uncertainty for Emulex's customers and the storage networking market as a whole has, and could, continue to adversely affect Emulex's revenues and results of operations. Furthermore, the effect of any actual or potential unsolicited offers to acquire Emulex may have an adverse effect on Emulex's operations. As a result of these uncertainties, Emulex is unable to predict its future results with any accuracy. Other factors affecting these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: faster than anticipated decline in the storage networking market; slower than expected growth of the storage networking market or the failure of Emulex's Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to successfully incorporate Emulex products into their systems; Emulex's dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, decrease in or delays of orders by any such customers, or the failure of such customers to make timely payments; the emergence of new or stronger competitors as a result of consolidation movements in the market; the timing and market acceptance of Emulex products or Emulex OEM customers' new or enhanced products; costs associated with entry into new areas of the storage technology market; the variability in the level of Emulex's backlog and the variable and seasonal procurement patterns of Emulex's customers; any inadequacy of Emulex's intellectual property protection and the costs of actual or potential third-party claims of infringement and any related indemnity obligations or adverse judgments; impairment charges, including but not limited to goodwill and intangible assets; changes in tax rates or legislation; the effects of acquisitions; the effects of terrorist activities; natural disasters, such as the earthquake and resulting tsunami off the coast of Japan in March 2011 and the significant flooding in various parts of Thailand in October 2011, and any resulting disruption in Emulex's supply chain or customer purchasing patterns or any other resulting economic or political instability; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex products as well as pricing pressures that may result from such competitive conditions; the effects of changes in Emulex's business model to separately charge for software; the effect of rapid migration of customers towards newer, lower cost product platforms; possible transitions from board or box level to application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions for selected applications; a shift in unit product mix from higher-end to lower-end or mezzanine card products; a faster than anticipated decrease in the average unit selling prices or an increase in the manufactured cost of Emulex products; delays in product development; Emulex's reliance on third-party suppliers and subcontractors for components and assembly; Emulex's ability to attract and retain key technical personnel; Emulex's ability to benefit from research and development activities; Emulex's dependence on international sales and internationally produced products; changes in accounting standards; and the potential effects of global warming and any resulting regulatory changes on Emulex's business. These and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in Emulex's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. Statements in this release are based on current expectations and, except as required by law, Emulex undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Press Contact:

Katherine Lane
Director, Corporate Communications
+1 714-885-3828
katherine.lane@emulex.com

Jolene Bonina
Public Relations Manager
+1 714-885-3858
jolene.bonina@emulex.com

SOURCE Emulex Corporation