NextIO, the pioneer in I/O consolidation and virtualization solutions, today announced the general availability of vNET I/O Maestro, a rack-level appliance that simplifies the deployment and management of complex server I/O by consolidating and virtualizing I/O resources. Based on industry standard PCI-Express (PCIe) switching technology, vNET I/O Maestro’s innovative IOV architecture enables a single I/O device to appear as multiple virtual adapters so that servers in the rack can share a single PCIe device.

vNET I/O Maestro allows IT managers to connect any server to any I/O resource with the click of a mouse, share physical resources among servers within the rack, and dynamically deploy or reallocate resources to servers as workload changes demand. With fewer adapters, leaf switches and cables, vNET I/O Maestro delivers greater operational efficiencies that reduce acquisition (CAPEX) costs up to 40 percent and operations (OPEX) costs up to 60 percent. The result is a datacenter I/O infrastructure that is flexible and agile.

“Multiple fabrics are a reality of today’s datacenters,” said Carl Claunch, VP and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner. “Unfortunately, the infrastructure to support these multiple fabrics drives up the costs and complexity of datacenters. We recommend consolidating and simplifying those many connections as a best practice for data center design and operations.”

vNET I/O Maestro removes layers of data center complexities often found in traditional server I/O deployments to maximize the value, productivity and efficiencies of complex server I/O.  With vNET I/O Maestro, customers can:

Reduce the cost of VMware implementations, as well as minimize the cost of implementing multi-fabric and complex datacenter networks and storage infrastructures
Enable cost-effective 10Gb Ethernet deployments
Reduce the time it takes to deploy new servers from weeks to just days
Eliminate the cable sprawl in the sever rack for better ease of manageability
Reduce the number of adapters and leaf switches to lower power and cooling costs
vNET I/O Maestro was designed with built-in scalability to accommodate ever-changing workloads, and with the ability to dynamically allocate and re-assign servers on-the-fly. vNET I/O Maestro offers greater flexibility to provision resources as workloads demand, providing:

Any-to-any connectivity: dynamically connects any server to any I/O resource in minutes
Easy serviceability: hot plug I/O modules and remote application migration allow systems to stay up and running during service
Open standards: PCIe standard does not require any major changes to existing infrastructure
NextIO’s nControl™ management software is a standard feature in every vNET I/O Maestro appliance and provides remote centralized management of complex server I/O. nControl’s user-friendly interface offers a wide range of capabilities, allowing system administrators to fine-tune the performance of the I/O infrastructure to meet application requirements.

vNET I/O Maestro supports between 15 to 30 industry-standard x86 servers running Windows, Linux and VMware operating systems. The system features eight hot-swappable I/O modules that can be shared across servers, and four hot-swappable I/O modules that can be dedicated to specific servers or re-allocated as needed.  Currently, vNET I/O Maestro supports dual-port 10Gb Ethernet NICs and dual-port 8Gb Fibre Channel HBAs in the shared slots, and can also support any low-profile PCIe device in the four dedicated slots.  Standard PCIe connections in the rear of the appliance provide 10Gbps – 20Gbps of dedicated bandwidth for server connections.  vNET I/O Maestro will support other shared technologies such as SAS, FCoE, flash storage, and GPUs in the future, increasing the “any-to-any” choices available to server administrators.

“NextIO was founded around the vision of any-to-any connectivity,” said KC Murphy, CEO, NextIO. “Our current portfolio of data center consolidation products maximizes the value, productivity and efficiencies of complex I/O. With vNET I/O Maestro’s ability to remove layers of data center infrastructure complexity, we have expanded upon our vision to bring new levels of efficiency to data center professionals everywhere.”

vNET I/O Maestro is now generally available and currently shipping to customers worldwide. For more information, please visit www.nextio.com