While the excitement, and most of the press, in data center and in particular networking technology is focused on virtualization and the emerging Software-Led Infrastructure, hardware still matters, writes Wikibon Networking Analyst Stuart Miniman in “The Value of Adapters in a Software-Led World”. Specifically, he writes, the new Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 generation of servers is accelerating adoption of 10Gb Ethernet, while new switches such as the Qlogic FlexSuite 2600 adopters are easing the conversion for companies. FlexSuite is a 16 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) switch that will support end-user field upgrades to 10 Gb Ethernet in the near future, thus allowing companies to upgrade their FC networks today, while providing the capability to convert those networks to the more flexible 10 Gb Ethernet in the future.

While the industry is still shipping more 1 Gb than 10 Gb Ethernet, and while a recent Wikibon survey of VMware customers shows that FC is the most popular network protocol for virtualized systems, data from Crehan Research shows 10GBase-T adoption hitting an inflection point this year, with shipments expected to be triple what they were a year ago.

Given the underlying importance of the hardware infrastructure over which the new virtualized environments run, Miniman recommends that CIOs seek maximum flexibility to support future needs when upgrading servers and the physical network. Adaptors that support both FC and Ethernet or that support both 1 Gb Ethernet today with easy conversion to 10Gb later can save money, time, and effort in the long run.

As with all Wikibon research, this paper is available in its entirety on the public Wikibon Web site. IT professionals are invited to register for membership in the Wikibon community. This allows them to comment on research and publish their own Professional Alerts, tips, questions, and relevant white papers. It also subscribes them to invitations to the periodic Peer Incite meetings, at which their peers discuss the solutions they have found to real-world problems, and to the Peer Incite Newsletter, in which Wikibon and outside experts analyze aspects of the subjects discussed in these meetings.