SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec. 14 -- Chelsio Communications Inc., the leading provider of 10 Gigabit Ethernet unified wire solutions, today announced availability of its T3-based Unified Wire Accelerators, which enable server networking, storage networking and clustering on a single platform, for the IBM BladeCenter. The 10GbE Unified Wire expansion card solution (CFFh) has been qualified by industry organization Blade.org for use with IBM BladeCenter enterprise servers.

"IBM continues to innovate and evolve blade server computing with the trailblazing IBM BladeCenter platform," said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio Communications. "With the Chelsio 10GbE Unified Wire expansion card for IBM BladeCenter, customers can deploy networking, storage, and cluster communications over a unified 10GbE fabric for ease-of-use, reliability, availability and performance."

The new S320EM-BCH expansion card from Chelsio, an active Blade.org member, is a dual-port 10Gb Ethernet adapter with PCI Express interface. It offloads TCP/IP, iSCSI and iWARP RDMA processing from the host system, freeing up host CPU cycles for other applications. Chelsio's 10Gb iWARP implementation is the only one in the industry accepted into the Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution. As such, this card can seamlessly run InfiniBand applications on 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Further, when combined with Chelsio's commercial grade iSCSI target stack, it can run Fibre Channel applications on Ethernet. The adapter consumes only 16W, making it also the lowest power solution of its type in the market.

"Blade.org continues to expand the ecosystem of technologies and solutions available for blade customers," said Doug Balog, chairman for Blade.org and vice president of development for IBM BladeCenter. "The new 10GbE Unified Wire expansion card built by Chelsio for IBM BladeCenter enables blade customers to build flexible I/O networks utilizing a 10GbE-based unifying fabric for clustering, storage and networking."

IBM BladeCenter is the broadest portfolio of blade offerings in the industry, with five blade enclosures, five compatible server blades and five I/O fabrics with a common architecture that allows clients to mix and match offerings. IBM has also taken a unique approach in the industry by opening up the IBM BladeCenter hardware architecture, which has created market and revenue opportunities for hundreds of companies selling peripherals like network and storage cards, switches and software.

The S320EM-BCH is list priced at $895 and is available from Bell Microproducts, Chelsio's distribution partner.

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/.

About Blade.org

Blade.org is a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of blade server solutions. The organization provides leadership to the blade market and fosters a thriving industry ecosystem focused on delivering valuable solutions to blade computing customers. For more information, visit the organization online at www.blade.org/.

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Source: Chelsio Communications Inc.