Solarflare Communications, the leading provider of 10GbE silicon, and Cloudsoft Corporation a provider of cloud computing software
and services that drive application mobility, announced today the
results of multivendor benchmarking of Monterey, Cloudsoft’s
enterprise-class cloud platform.
The results showed the combination of high performing,
off-the-shelf adapters, switches and Citrix XenServer server
virtualization software achieved 4.6 Gbps on multiple, respective,
guest-to-guest links. With 4 pairs of guest-to-guest links, the test
achieved 18.5 Gbps bi-directional line rate on a 10G physical
connection. This represents a five- to six-fold improvement over other
server virtualization I/O solutions available on the market.
Effectively deploying
cloud computing applications requires at least three fundamental
pillars: security, virtualization and performance. These results
demonstrate that the virtual networking environments required by
enterprise cloud applications can actually deliver line-rate
performance with the use of the Solarflare Solarstorm SFN4112F 10GbE
server adapter. Solarflare’s adapter is designed to achieve line-rate
performance and architected to support scalable, hardware-assisted
virtualization by supporting direct access to the adapter hardware in a
XenServer environment.
"We’re very pleased with the performance of our Solarstorm
SFN4112F 10GbE server adapter in the testing and delighted to partner
with Cloudsoft on Monterey," said Bruce Tolley, VP Corporate Marketing,
Solarflare Communications. "Market trading and financial services are a
sweet spot for 10G Ethernet adoption, especially when combined with
optimized server virtualization and low latency networking."
This proof-of-concept testing is part of a phased rollout of
Cloudsoft’s enterprise-class cloud platform, Monterey. Since Monterey’s
launch in September 2009, Cloudsoft has worked closely with its
partners to establish its first test environment, showcasing the ease
with which mission-critical enterprise applications can be implemented
using Cloudsoft’s application delivery platform.
Monterey provides native support for Cloudsoft Distributed
Mediation (CDM), a unique middleware platform that simplifies the
development and deployment of complex transactional applications in the
cloud. Cloudsoft’s patented technology automatically eliminates network
and processing bottlenecks, optimizes resource management and
implements policies, such as follow-the-sun to minimize latency and
follow-the-moon to compress costs.
"What is impressive about these tests is that we were able to
take off-the-shelf enterprise class components from our new partners
Arista and Solarflare and reproduce near native network performance
first reported by Citrix on our core Monterey platform. CDM
applications deployed on this platform will benefit from this,
particularly those featuring high fan in/fan out, such as our
EzBrokerage test case," added Duncan Johnston-Watt, Founder & CEO,
Cloudsoft Corporation. "Looking further ahead, we will be expanding our
Monterey initiative early next year, bringing other Monterey nodes
online on both the East Coast and in the UK to prove out Cloudsoft’s
application mobility over wide area networking."
"These tests make it clear that Monterey has all the building
blocks in place to deliver enterprise-class cloud computing today,"
said Gordon Mangione, VP of Emerging Products, Datacenter and Cloud
Division, Citrix Systems. "Citrix has enabled cloud providers to offer
a rich portfolio of enterprise services leveraging XenServer and the
Xen Cloud Platform (XCP) at no charge – these tests not only provide
further validation on the efficiency of leveraging Citrix technology in
cloud platforms, but also demonstrate the resulting performance
benefits."
The test configuration consisted of the following elements provided by Monterey partners:
- Citrix XenServer 5.5
- Intel Xeon 5570 processors
- Super Micro 2U Twin2 chassis
- Arista Networks 7148SX 48 Port 10GbE switch
- Solarflare Solarstorm SFN4112F 10GbE server adapters
"Cloud computing enables global workload mobility, driving
bandwidth demands far greater than any application, including video.
Arista switching, with Solarflare adapters, Citrix virtualization and
Cloudsoft’s Monterey platform provide an excellent foundation to deploy
cloud computing capabilities in the enterprise," said Doug Gourlay, VP
of Marketing, Arista Networks.
The full enterprise-class Citrix XenServer platform is free of
charge to any user for unlimited production deployment. Please visit
http://www.citrix.com/freexenserver for more information.
