Hewlett-Packard is expanding the use of NetXen networking technology in its industry-standard ProLiant servers.
HP is now reselling NetXen’s latest 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters as stand-alone products for use with its ProLiant systems, and also integrating them into its new ProLiant ML370 G6 two-socket tower servers, NetXen announced April 14.
The G6 servers are the latest systems powered by Intel’s Xeon 5500 series chips, aka “Nehalem EP.”
NetXen’s NX3031 intelligent NICs (network interface cards) have two 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, four Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and the company’s networking architecture. HP will sell the NetXen product as the HP NC522SFP Dual Port 10GbE Server Adapter.
Trends such as the increased use of virtualization, data center consolidation projects and dense server form factors-all of which require faster, higher-capacity and more reliable data networks-are contributing to a push by enterprises to adopt 10G Ethernet networking technology.
In March, research companies Infonetics Research and Dell’Oro Group both reported that while the overall Ethernet switch market is getting hit hard by the recession, sales are shifting more toward the higher-priced 10G Ethernet products. Dell’Oro Group said 10G Ethernet will be the only segment of the market that will see growth in the first part of 2009.
Click here to read more about the Ethernet switch market in 2009.
HP officials said the combination of HP servers and NetXen networking products will improve network connectivity and ramp up data center performance.
“Customers are searching for cost-effective, simple solutions to accelerate business growth and improve data center scalability,” John Gromala, director of product marketing for HP’s Industry Standard Server group, said in a statement.
NetXen officials said their products enable users to buy one product that will work both for the networks they have in place today and for the ones they’re building.
“The flexibility of our third-generation NIC products to deliver both 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet in a single devices provides the industry with an easy, affordable and flexible migration path,” Govind Kizhepat, NetXen’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.