3Leaf Customer Traction Shakes Up Server Virtualization

May 3, 2007

3Leaf Systems, provider of virtualization solutions for enterprise data centers, introduced the 3Leaf Systems V-8000 Virtual I/O Server. Virtualizing the I/O subsystems for large pools of servers, the V-8000 delivers mainframe-class availability and resiliency for commodity systems while dramatically reducing both capital and maintenance costs.

The V-8000’s feature set addresses the challenges facing today’s enterprise data centers by maximizing server resource utilization and scalability, speeding up the deployment and provisioning of new servers, and providing high availability and centralized management while reducing both capital and operating costs. Capital expenditure savings from deploying the V‑8000 can exceed 50 percent on day one, and operations savings can be close to 60 percent.

The first offering on 3Leaf’s roadmap of virtualization solutions, the V-8000 delivers scalable I/O connectivity for servers residing in the 3Leaf Virtual Compute Environment (VCE). In addition to providing highly scalable and efficient I/O, the VCE architecture minimizes the cost of putting commodity servers into service by removing the need for local networking and storage. The servers are stateless, commodity nodes that efficiently connect to virtual Network Interface Cards, virtual Host Bus Adapters, and virtual disks through the V-8000. This I/O consolidation results in fewer connections to the data and storage networks supporting the VCE, which translates into capital savings; and because there is less to manage, overall operating expenditures are reduced as well.

Cost savings are driving the overall IT consolidation market, which IDC projects will grow from $18.1 billion in 2004 to $24.7 billion in 2009, outpacing growth of the overall IT market worldwide. Virtualization software sales are expected to rise from $340 million to $15 billion during that period — almost a 50-fold increase.

“Traditional scale-out server architectures, when installed and managed on a large scale, have a very high total cost of ownership, due to the physical complexities of configuring and connecting so many servers and the amount of time required for initial provisioning and reprovisioning,” said Mike Kahn, managing director of The Clipper Group, technology acquisition consultants based in Wellesley, Mass. “3 Leaf Systems' Virtual Compute Environment changes all of that while also improving the scalability, effective capacity, and availability of the underlying servers. Their approach makes a lot of sense!”

Faster server deployment: The V-8000 enables fast deployment of new servers in two ways. First, because the V-8000 allows servers to be defined in advance, spare nodes can have new profiles applied in a matter of minutes rather than weeks or months. Second, network and storage do not necessarily need to be involved every time a new server is put into service, because the network and storage interfaces have been pre-allocated to these profiles. The streamlined deployment enabled by the V-8000 increases efficiencies and lowers operating costs.

Quality of service for both networking and storage: The V-8000 allows I/O resources to be allocated using quality of service parameters, which delivers limits and guarantees to both networking and storage interfaces, allowing service levels to be dynamically modified as application demand changes. This results in greatly improved utilization of I/O resources, and ensures priority applications are running efficiently and delivering mainframe-class availability.

High availability, reduced downtime: The V-8000, along with the VCE, delivers high resiliency by reducing the number of components, including local discs, excess network and storage adapters, and switch ports in the data and storage networks. In addition, the software infrastructure is more efficient – and the result of reducing the number and flavors of drivers is less downtime. High availability is supported two ways: First, in case of a failure, the V‑8000 automatically fails over to a redundant V-8000 with redundant networking and storage interfaces. Second, the V-8000 has built-in redundancy for storage and networking, with the ability to automatically discover redundant storage paths and bond together redundant networking paths. The V-8000 delivers higher availability and resiliency at half of the cost of today’s infrastructure.

“3Leaf’s value proposition immediately resonates with enterprise companies that are looking for ways to effectively deal with the headaches of server deployment, increasing costs while still at very low utilization levels, and the complexities of managing all of their computing resources,” said Bob Quinn, CEO, 3Leaf Systems. “We anticipate continued company growth and increased product demand based on the market drivers for a solution such as ours, and the significant customer traction we have gained in a short period of time.”