Virtual Connect cost advantages - total cost of ownership

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Virtual Connect Total Cost of Ownership

The Virtual Connect (VC) architecture, with the Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules and FlexFabric adapters, delivers unique cost advantages over pass-through modules and switches without the usual compromises of too many cables, too many switches, too many expensive uplink ports and too many people to make simple changes to server connections. Here is a quick list of TCO benefits:

Consolidates networks—reduce NICs, HBAs, switches and cables
Simplify server connections—cleanly separate server management from local area network (LAN) and storage area network (SAN) management with industry-standard protocols
Change servers in minutes, not days—add, replace and recover servers without impacting LAN or SAN
Fine-tune network bandwidth at the server edge and adapt to changing workload demands on the-fly. Provisioned storage resource can be associated directly to a specific virtual machine; even if the virtual server is re-allocated within the BladeSystem

Virtual Connect drives down the TCO. Here’s how:

With our Virtual Connect FlexFabric modules and FlexFabric adapters we can quadruple the number of connections per server without adding NICs, switches and cables thereby reducing connection costs up to 65 percent
Overall, Virtual Connect eliminate 95% of network sprawl at the server edge with one interconnect and one wire that connects servers to any data or storage network
Reduces the number of expensive data center switch ports needed
Avoids limit to Fibre Channel fabric size
Lowers operational costs across multiple data center teams

Lower TCO even more with our new Virtual Connect FlexFabric module

A standard VMware implementation requires 6 NICs and 2 Fibre Channel ports per server. With conventional networking gear, this gets very expensive very fast. For a regular blade server this means adding 2 NIC cards, plus one Fibre Channel HBA card (by the way, many blade servers can’t support this amount of expansion). Next add in the switches. For each NIC, one needs a switch. For a 6 NIC and 2 Fibre Channel port configuration a total of 6 LAN switches are needed as are also 2 Fibre Channel switches. Now add in the cables and uplink ports required and you are talking about some serious cost. With the Virtual Connect FlexFabric module you can have up to 8 FlexNIC ports without adding any NIC cards. And you can connect the FlexNICs to your data center network with only 2 Virtual Connect Flex-10 Ethernet Modules vs. 6 LAN switches. And with the Virtual Connect FlexFabric module, you can consolidate storage connections too. HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric module and FlexFabric adapters enable you to have up to 6 FlexNIC and 2 FlexHBA connections per adapter. Saving money and having expansion room – what could be better?

Combined NIC and I/O module costs plus included cables and switch ports

	4 NICs	6 NICs	8 NICs
Pass-thru (1:1)	$50,700	$79,578	$107,480
Cisco 3120G (1:1)	$53,904	$84,384	$113,888
Cisco 3120X (1:10)	$75,892	$117,366	$157.864
Virtual Connect With Flex-10	$52,790	$52,790	$52,790

Cable costs include: cable, installation and associated SFP module. NIC pricing includes: HP Dual-Port NC360m, HP Quad-Port NC364m, HP Dual-Port NC532m 10 GbE Flex-10 NIC Your mileage may vary.

» BladeSystem TCO Calculator
» IDC TCO FlexFabric White paper