Yesterday, Dell made the industry’s first demonstration of a Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) solution based on industry standards using technologies from Intel and Citrix to help improve virtualization performance across networked servers and storage.
The solution utilizes Intel VT-d and the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) device with support for PCI-SIG SR-IOV specification and to allow multiple virtual machines (VMs) running on Citrix XenServer in a Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 with Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 to directly share I/O devices. Dell and Intel worked closely with Citrix to develop the solution.
“We are pleased to demonstrate I/O virtualization performance improvements that will make a business impact for latency intensive applications like data mining, databases and stock trades, ” said Sally Stevens, Dell’s vice president of Platform Marketing. “Companies will be able to take advantage of these boosts without incurring great costs as it works with existing investments in networking infrastructures and does not require additional networking switches and cables.â€
The demonstration was performed at the Exhibitor Booths within the Virtualization Community at the Intel Developers Forum 2009 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, and will continue through Thursday.
