SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec. 11 -- Chelsio Communications Inc., a provider of 10-Gigabit Ethernet unified wire solutions, today announced full support of VMware ESX Server 3.5 across its 3rd generation 10GbE T3 adapter product line. This effort as a VMware Community Source program member allows Chelsio to deliver the next level of high-performance Ethernet solutions to VMware Infrastructure users.

As a VMware Community Source program member, Chelsio has expanded its VMware relationship by validating enhancements to VMware ESX Server 3.5 and optimizing Chelsio T3 Adapters for VMware Infrastructure environments. Chelsio is also collaborating with VMware to certify its drivers. Participation in these VMware programs complements Chelsio's goal to enable unified wire networking for the agile data center and provide simple, standards-based solutions to its customers.

"VMware Infrastructure is the optimal choice for infrastructure virtualization, helping customers address space, power and cooling limitations in their data centers as well as improve data center management," said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio Communications. "Combined with Chelsio's 10GbE adapters, end-users will now be able to remove I/O bottlenecks within their virtualized environments, allowing higher virtual-to-physical ratios and opening the door to new network-intensive applications."

"VMware continues to work with its partner ecosystem to innovate in areas such as high-speed network I/O that complement the core value provided by VMware Infrastructure," said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. "By utilizing the tools and resources available to VMware co-development program members, Chelsio is delivering innovative 10GbE networking solutions optimized for the market-leading virtual infrastructure platform."

Chelsio's adapters are powered by its T3 ASIC technology, designed for virtualization at the silicon level and enabling line rate performance for transmit and receive for VMware ESX 3.5. Chelsio's cut-through T3 architecture delivers a high volume of transactions per second, in excess of 16 million packets per second. Chelsio's customers are able to use the same drivers for any host bus, any physical media, any offload protocol, and any number of ports and speeds of Ethernet. A key attribute of the Chelsio's T3 technology is the seamless upgrade path from NIC to RDMA, iSCSI and TOE in conjunction with VMware, which enables customers to invest in the fastest, lowest cost 10GbE NICs today and use a software upgrade to implement additional functionality as needed.

The Chelsio T3 driver for VMware ESX Server 3.5 is currently in beta test and available for download. It will start shipping in Q1 2008. The T3 10GbE adapter product line is available from Bell Microproducts, Chelsio's distribution partner, as well as directly from Chelsio.

About Chelsio Communications

Chelsio Communications is leading the convergence of networking, storage and clustering interconnects with its robust, high-performance and proven unified wire technology. Featuring a highly scalable and programmable architecture, Chelsio is shipping 10-Gigabit Ethernet and multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapter cards, delivering the low latency and superior throughput required for high-performance computing applications. For more information, visit the company online at www.chelsio.com.

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Source: Chelsio Communications Inc.