Xsigo Systems, Inc., the leader in virtualized data center infrastructure, announced it has been recognized for data center Ethernet switches, according to a new report issued by Gartner, Inc.
According to the report entitled, “Competitive Landscape: Data Center Ethernet Switches, Worldwide, 2011 Update”, “the data center Ethernet switch market grew to $6.1 billion and 22.5 million ports in 2010, with growth of 119.4% and 88.5%, respectively, over 2009”.
The Gartner report included a competitive landscape of vendors, placing Xsigo in the data center Ethernet switch category as a “Data Center Network Specialist,” along with Juniper Networks, Brocade, and Extreme Networks.
The Gartner report explained that, “users now recognize the need for a significantly new type of Ethernet switch for their data centers. As more and more data centers are affected by trends like consolidation, virtualization and automation, this has given rise to a set of new problems that network managers have to address.” Xsigo agrees with Gartner’s assessment that key data center issues include:
- Growing East-West network traffic – with virtualization, applications need to run anywhere, which creates complex server-to-server data paths where data must negotiate multiple layers of infrastructure to reach its destination. The resulting latencies and bottlenecks are known as the East-West problem;
- Exponential performance demands – virtualized servers demand an increasing amount of I/O bandwidth;
- VLAN exhaustion – when creating a large number of isolated interconnects within an agile data center, VLANs are not always available in sufficient quantity and can become a maintenance challenge to administer.
To address such concerns, Xsigo recently announced the Xsigo Server Fabric, specifically designed to meet the needs of scalable, high-performance Ethernet switching by using its patented virtual I/O technology to support dynamic data center needs. The Xsigo approach is very different from the traditional network switch, yet can be deployed in support of very traditional mainstream applications within large organizations.
“Xsigo is thrilled to be part of this growing market along-side other industry leaders like Cisco, Juniper, and Brocade,” said Lloyd Carney, Xsigo CEO. “Our unique Server Fabric technology presents a fast and flexible alternative to conventional switching technologies, and also meets our customers’ foremost requirement - to provide a seamless, non-disruptive path forward towards a more efficient, lower-cost data center.”