Partners Support Microsoft Server and Cloud Updates

Microsoft partners Riverbed, Arista Networks and Mellanox announced support for Microsoft products at the TechEd 2013 conference this week.

Riverbed Supports Windows Server 2012 environments. Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced Stingray Traffic Manager application delivery controller (ADC) software and Virtual Steelhead wide area network (WAN) optimization appliances support on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and the cost-free Hyper-V Server 2012. With the announcement companies can deploy Stingray Traffic Manager in any virtualized data center or cloud environment using Hyper-V, which allows them to take advantage of Stingray Traffic Manager’s advanced Layer 7 application services.

Organizations that deploy Riverbed Virtual Steelhead appliances will be able to accelerate applications and data transfers in Hyper-V environments without having to purchase, setup, provision, and maintain multiple physical servers in branch offices. "This continuing alliance couples two global leaders in delivering integrated enterprise solutions for the mutual benefit of our customers,” said Venugopal Pai, vice president, global alliances, at Riverbed. “Working hand-in-hand over the years, we have helped customers maximize the value of enterprise solutions in several key technology areas. Our customers are able to increase IT efficiency, improve application performance, and enjoy cost savings in a variety of Microsoft cloud, physical, and virtual deployments that now includes Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Hyper V Server 2012.”

Arista supports Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure.  Arista Networks announced full support for Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) across all Arista platforms through Arista EOS (extensible operating system) software version 4.12. “Microsoft’s Cloud OS is built on Windows Server, System Center, and Windows Azure and aligns with Microsoft’s commitment to openness, supporting standards (DIM + WS-Man) using OMI,” said Chris Phillips, Partner Director PM, Windows Server, Microsoft. “Arista’s manageable switch’s support for Microsoft OMI gives customers flexibility and cost effectiveness as they implement networking across public and private cloud environments.”

Mellanox speeds VDI with Server 2012 over Hyper-V.  Mellanox (MLNX) announced that its 10GbE with RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) interconnect solutions achieved a new record of application performance and efficiency for Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI). Mellanox internal benchmark results from the combined VDI solution of Mellanox 10GbE, LSI Nytro MegaRAID Application Acceleration Card, and Windows Server 2012 over Hyper-V, delivered 105 virtual desktops with less than 5 seconds response time.

The new performance results were enabled by Microsoft SMB Direct protocol implemented in Windows Server 2012 running under Hyper-V and connected to File Storage with an LSI Nytro MegaRAID Application Acceleration card, all connected by Mellanox’s end-to-end 10GbE with RoCE interconnect solution. “Storage can represent 40 to 60 percent of the cost of a VDI installation,” said Tony Afshary, director of marketing, Accelerated Solutions Division. “The PCIe flash LSI Nytro MegaRAID card with Mellanox’s 10GbE RDMA adapter allows more VDI desktops to be supported by combining low-latency server-side flash technology with intelligent flash caching. Since only a fraction of VDI data needs flash acceleration, the balance of the data is maintained on more economical, capacity optimized hard drives. The joint solution is designed to enable more virtual desktops per physical server while providing significant cost benefits over traditional Fibre Channel-attached storage subsystems.”