Category Archives: Hardware

Adams Capital Management, Hardware, NextIO, Venture Funding

NextIO Gets $12.3 Million for Datacenter IO Consolidation

NextIO today announced it has closed a Series F funding round of $12.3 million. This round included investment by existing investors and an undisclosed strategic investor. NextIO, which demonstrated significant growth in 2011, will use the new funds to further expand sales and marketing efforts and to further expand NextIO’s family of I/O consolidation solutions.

“Our investors have a strong history of successful investments in companies at the forefront of a number of technologies. This investment is important not only as a source of capital, but as a vote of confidence in our strategy for datacenter I/O consolidation,” said K.C. Murphy, President and CEO of NextIO. “After a very successful 2011 built around our vCORE and vNET product lines, we intend to double our revenue in 2012. Closing this funding is a critical step to achieving that goal, as it allows us to take our I/O consolidation solutions and marketing strategies to the next level in the U.S. and throughout the world.”

NextIO’s customer base includes technology leaders in a variety of markets, including managed service providers, internet service providers, aerospace, automotive technologies, oil and gas, government, and finance. In 2011 alone, several hundred NextIO I/O consolidation systems were installed into these customers worldwide. NextIO will use the capital from the Series F funding round to grow both its worldwide go-to-market efforts and its product portfolio to further increase revenue and market penetration in 2012 and 2013.

“NextIO’s I/O consolidation products are achieving impressive market penetration in the multi-billion dollar datacenter networking market,” said George Ugras, General Partner at Adams Capital Management. “The explosion of data and the migration to the cloud presents a great opportunity in this market, and NextIO is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends as customers look for next-generation networking solutions. The customer adoption to date has validated the value proposition for NextIO’s products, so we felt this was the right time to further invest in the company and capitalize on the tremendous demand we are seeing.”

NextIO’s portfolio of rack-level I/O consolidation solutions includes products for datacenter network consolidation, GPGPU computing, and high-performance storage. The newest product in the NextIO portfolio is the vNET I/O Maestro, which provides server connectivity at the rack level to both Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks without the need for changes in governance models or proprietary, hard to support I/O drivers. The result is the elimination of expensive 10Gb Ethernet NICs, Fibre Channel HBA, multiple top-of-rack leaf switches, and an up to 80% reduction in the number of cables at the back of the rack. By simplifying server I/O, the vNET I/O Maestro significantly reduces CapEx, power consumption and cooling, while providing the ability to dynamically reconfigure I/O resources across servers as the needs in the datacenter evolve due to business conditions.


Computer Hardware, Data center, Hardware, InfiniBand, Mellanox, Mellanox Technologies, Virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere

Mellanox Releases InfiniBand Driver for VMware vSphere

Image representing Mellanox Technologies as de...Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., a supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced the availability of InfiniBand driver support for VMware vSphere® 5, providing IT end-users the compelling choice of deploying field proven InfiniBand-based interconnect in virtualized data center and cloud environments. Running with Mellanox’s industry-leading ConnectX®-3 FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapter cards and SwitchX® FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand switches, the InfiniBand software driver for VMware vSphere 5 helps bring high throughput and low latency to virtualized IT deployments.

The InfiniBand driver for VMware vSphere 5 along with features like VMware VMDirect Path I/O, vMotion® and VMware High Availability (HA), leverage InfiniBand’s advanced built-in reliability and performance capabilities to help bring high performance and cost-effective solutions to IT end-users.

“Virtualization is proven to be the most effective technology to drive lower data center total cost of ownership and improve the cost-effectiveness of cloud computing SLA,” said David Barzilai, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s InfiniBand driver leverages the advanced data center virtualization and high availability features of VMware vSphere 5 to help bring new cost-effective system architectures for the next generation of flexible, reliable IT services.”

 


Aquantia, Computer Hardware, Ethernet, Hardware, Hosting, Internet Technology, Telecommunications Equipment, Venture Funding

Aquantia Gets $35 Million for High-speed Datacenter Ethernet

Image representing Aquantia as depicted in Cru...

Aquantia, a developer of High Speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for cloud computing and large scale data center deployments, announced today it has completed a Series F financing of $35 million, with new investor RUSNANO leading the round, joined by current investors. RUSNANO will invest $25 million, and current and new investors will contribute $10 million to the financing round.

Aquantia successfully launched its industry-leading 40nm 10GBASE-T PHY chipset in 2011, as a critical ingredient to emerging LAN-on-Motherboard (LOM) platforms for new data center servers and switches. With Intel’s March 2012 launch of its Romley generation LOM server platforms, the 10GBASE-T interconnect market is now seeing an explosive uptick. According to Crehan Research, shipments of 10GBASE-T in Data Center switching and servers will see more than a seven-fold increase from 2011 to 2012, reaching a total of approximately 6.5 million ports in 2013, and almost 20 million the following year.

Aquantia will establish a new design center in Russia. The Russian R&D center will support the headquarter Silicon Valley R&D group in chip design and software development, as well as product testing.

“Aquantia is the only 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) silicon provider to meet our investment criteria in the high-speed data center interconnect space,” said RUSNANO managing director Sergey Polikarpov. “We believe big data and global data center traffic are going to see a tremendous swell in the next several years, and Aquantia’s technology is essential to improving server performance while realizing greater cost efficiencies. This is a premium opportunity for us to participate in the market growth and its rewards.”

“NEA is excited to continue to support Aquantia as the company expands operations to meet the ever-increasing demand for its superior technology,” added NEA partner Rohini Chakravarthy. “We see network capacity build-up expected to support 15 billion connected devices by 2015. This represents a tremendous opportunity for Aquantia.”

“This past year has been tremendously gratifying, as it has been the culmination of hard work, innovation and powerful partnering in the 10GE and LOM space,” explained Aquantia’s president and CEO Faraj Aalaei. “We are truly ecstatic about the takeoff of Intel’s Romley platform and what it means as a watershed event for the near-term ubiquity of 10GBASE-T in the data center as well as future opportunity across the Enterprise space. This is what we have been working toward, and our funding partners in this and all previous rounds have positioned us for tremendous delivery success.”

Go to http://www.aquantia.com/news-and-media/ for footage of recent discussions on 10GBASE-T, and follow Aquantia on Twitter for ongoing updates on 10Gigabit Ethernet connectivity in the data center and cloud computing environments.

About Aquantia

Aquantia’s 10Gigabit Ethernet ICs are at the heart of cloud computing and large-scale data center deployments taking place today. This market segment is going through a very fast transition, with astounding growth in the total amount of compute power and the move to faster connectivity. This has in turn led to a new paradigm for 10Gigabit Ethernet all across the ecosystem. With its 10GBASE-T silicon products, Aquantia delivers to its OEM customers the most versatile and highest performance 10Gigabit Ethernet connectivity solution while providing lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Located in Silicon Valley, Aquantia is a venture-backed company, with strong tier-1 VCs and strategic investor support. For more information, visit www.aquantia.com.

About RUSNANO

RUSNANO was founded in March 2011 as an open joint stock company through reorganization of state corporation Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies. RUSNANO’s mission is to develop the Russian nanotechnology industry through co-investment in nanotechnology projects with substantial economic potential or social benefit. The Government of the Russian Federation owns 100 percent of the shares in RUSNANO. Anatoly Chubais is CEO and chairman of the Executive Board of RUSNANO.

Work to establish nanotechnology infrastructure and training for nanotechnology specialists, formerly conducted by the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, has been entrusted to the Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs, a non-commercial fund also established through reorganization of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies.


APEX 2800, Desktop virtualization, Hardware, Teradici, Virtualization, VMware, VMware View, VMware vSphere

Teradici APEX 2800 Server Offload Card Now Supporting VMware View 5.1, vSphere

Image representing Teradici as depicted in Cru...

Teradici, the developer of the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) protocol that enables a true PC experience for desktop virtualization, today announced the compatibility of the APEX 2800 server offload card with the latest release of VMware View 5.1, continuing full compatibility with all current VMware View and VMware vSphere releases.

“As organizations of all sizes accelerate their journey to cloud, and adopt desktop virtualization, businesses are looking for solutions that can provide a rich, flexible and secure experience for end-users,” said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing, VMware. “VMware cloud infrastructure is built to support active end-user demands and we welcome products that can provide exceptional benefits for VMware View™ environments. The Teradici APEX 2800 server offload card is an important tool for IT managers trying to reclaim CPU cycles while leveraging their existing virtual desktop infrastructure.”

The Teradici PCoIP server offload card dynamically offloads the most active 64 displays on the server, improving the consolidation ratio by up to 2x and reducing the cost per virtual desktop. The card also helps reduce the CPU buffer put aside in View deployments for “just-in-case” graphic peaks. The card can easily be enabled in VMware View Administrator.

“Teradici has a commitment to ensure full compatibility for all its products in the growing PCoIP and VMware End-User Computing ecosystem, so we’re happy to support VMware View™ 5.1 and VMware vSphere® with the APEX 2800,” said Trent Punnett, vice president of marketing, Teradici. “As the developer of the industry’s only server offload card designed to maximize the benefits of VMware View PCoIP deployments, we are dedicated to ongoing development of the APEX 2800 to ensure the best end-user experience for virtual desktop deployments.”

The Teradici APEX 2800 PCoIP server offload card is available through distributors worldwide, as well as from HP and Dell websites as a peripheral at the list price of $1,995 in the US. For more information, please visit www.teradici.com/APEX.