So, how far do we want to go with this virtualisation business? We have server, storage and now I/O virtualistion!

While virtualised I/O is not new (The hypervisors in VMware, XenServer and  IBMPowerVM all present virtual path mappings to physical resources), an appliance virtualising both network and storage I/O is.

Xsigo is not a well-known name in the virtualisation world, especially on this side of the Atlantic, but for a relative newcomer to the market they are turning quite a few heads with their I/O virtualisation technology.

Xsigo has developed  a switch-type device, which they call a Director, based on Infiniband technology which is aimed at simplifying and accellerating I/O virtualisation. The Xsigo Director allows a single physical connection to be presented as a number of virtual NIC's & HBA's, allowing Fibre Channel SANs and 1Gbp/10Gb Ethernet to share the same physical cable which can deliver bandwidth at 20Gb/s.

The ability to consolidate the number of physical communication adapters in servers and replace them with a single adapter delivering much higher throughput delivers a huge advantage for many customers. With customers able to reduce their cabling and physical cards/switches by 70%, and savings of up to 80% on operational expenses - there is no doubt the TCO looks impressive.

See below for a video on the benefits of running Xsigo on DELL servers and VMware vSphere. 

Click here to learn how PrimaClould is delivering enterprise-class cloud computing services to it's customers with the availability and performance that Xsigo can deliver.