Mellanox to Provide Software Driver Support for ConnectX-4 Ethernet on VMware and vSphere

SUNNYVALE, CA: Mellanox, a storage network solutions provider, announces the launch of software driver support for ConnectX-4 Ethernet and RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) on VMware vSphere. The new software comes with features such as improved Ethernet network speeds at 25/50 and 100 GB/s, virtualized application communication over RoCE, advanced network virtualization and SDN (Software Defined Networking) acceleration support.

Mellanox’s ConnectX-4 supports VMware VSphere clouds with Ethernet networks generating speed up to 100 GB/s. The interconnected solution allows the stored traffic to runover a single wire. It can increase the profit on investment of hyper converged infrastructure and enables the multicore CPUs to enhance their capacity for running applications.

The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) over 25GB/s Ethernet provides more efficiency when compared with the 10GB/s Ethernet. RoCE can increase the storage access capability by 10 times. In the process, the system uses 50 percent less CPUs compared to the traditional transport. The vSphere utilizes the ConnectX-4 offload to accelerate VXLAN virtual networks and VXLAN tunnel endpoint (VTEP) gateways.

 “In the past, customers working in virtual environments in their data centers had to trade off performance for efficiency,” says Motti Beck, senior director, enterprise market development, Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s advanced networking technologies for VMware vSphere enable industry-leading performance and high efficiency.”