Mellanox announced that drivers for its ConnectX EN 10GigE NIC adapters are now included with Citrix XenServer 4.1, enabling plug-and-play integration of NIC adapters that boost I/O performance for virtual machines (VMs) while enabling I/O consolidation.

ConnectX EN 10GigE NIC adapters offer I/O virtualization features such as support for hardware-assisted direct guest access, VM-to-VM switching, advanced memory management, filtering, QoS and receive side scaling. These features improve overall server utilization, especially in multi-core CPU environments.

Mellanox’s advanced virtualization features are compatible with and complement PCI Single Root I/O Virtualization and AMD-V and Intel-VT features to deliver advanced, secure and granular levels of I/O services to applications running in VMs. LAN and iSCSI SAN (storage area network) traffic can both be consolidated over the same 10GigE NIC, and in the future, FC SAN connectivity will be enabled using the emerging FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) standard.

By leveraging the ConnectX EN Linux device driver, integration with the Citrix XenServer 4.1 I/O framework was achieved, accelerating time to market without compromising stability. The currently supported paravirtualized I/O solution delivers performance that will enable IT managers to replace 5 or more GigE NICs (depending on application usage) with a single 10GigE adapter. Future hardware I/O virtualization features will continue to deliver higher levels of features and performance, ensuring future-proofing for OEMs and end-users that deploy ConnectX EN with Citrix XenServer 4.1 today.

“Citrix delivers an end-to-end virtualization solution with Citrix XenServer, XenApp and XenDesktop,” said Phil Montgomery, Senior Director, Virtualization and Management Division, Citrix Systems. “Usage scenarios including dynamic provisioning of workloads, storage virtualization and consolidation place more demands on server input/output. We are pleased to include support for Mellanox’s ConnectX EN 10GigE NIC in XenServer 4.1, making it easier for users to improve throughput and performance in a seamless fashion.”

“Citrix XenServer 4.1 offers a powerful but easy-to-use server virtualization solution and fully leverages the ConnectX EN 10GigE NIC virtualization features,” said Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “In-the-box support of our ConnectX EN NIC in Citrix XenServer 4.1 simplifies deployment of high performance, feature-rich, consolidated I/O solutions by OEMs and end-users.”

Mellanox offers a complete family of ConnectX EN 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters to support a wide variety of cabling options including UTP, CX4 for copper and SR, LR and LRM for fibre optics. Mellanox ConnectX EN provides data centers with a rich set of availability, performance and QoS features enabling virtualization, and supports emerging technologies like FCoE and CEE (Converged Enhanced Ethernet) on a single adapter providing IO convergence.

Mellanox ConnectX 10GigE NIC adapters with Citrix XenServer 4.1 support are available from Mellanox.