3Leaf Systems announced the Virtual Compute Environment, a fully virtualized data center infrastructure that allocates server resources on demand to support changing business needs. By virtualizing memory, CPU, and I/O resources of standard x86 servers, 3Leaf Systems’ Virtual Compute Environment (VCE) delivers flexibility and mainframe-class availability to commodity servers while optimizing data center resources. 3Leaf Systems’ VCE is a core enabling technology for the “Dynamic Data Center,” allowing businesses to allocate resources on demand to meet business needs while at the same time reducing costs.

“3Leaf Systems is at the forefront of migrating businesses from traditional data center operations to fully virtualized environments,” said B.V. Jagadeesh, CEO and president of 3Leaf Systems. “By virtualizing compute, memory, and I/O resources on standard x86 servers, 3Leaf will give its customers the agility and flexibility to manage and plan for cyclical fluctuations in server resource demands. Instead of the time-consuming and costly over-provisioning of capacity that has become the norm, data centers managers will be able to realize the promise of the Dynamic Data Center and its dramatic cost savings.”

IT management is tasked with deploying data center resources to keep one step ahead of changing business environments. Mergers and acquisitions, global outsourcing, remote access for telecommuters and mobile workforces, and desktop virtualization tax existing data center resources and contribute to skyrocketing operational and capital expenditures. According to IDC, low server utilization wastes $140 billion of unused server resources. Combating the ever-increasing costs and keeping up with server demand requires increased scalability, faster deployment and provisioning, easy repurposing, and more efficient resource utilization.

“The demand on enterprise data centers is continually increasing. To keep up, businesses need flexible, agile, and cost-effective solutions to provision and manage resources in real time,” said George Crump, founder, Storage Switzerland. “Virtualization of memory, CPU, and I/O resources will vastly improve the responsiveness and availability of data center resources while lowering costs.”

3Leaf Systems Virtual Compute Environment
3Leaf’s Virtual Compute Environment is an advanced virtualization solution for the growing x86 server market that virtualizes compute, memory, and I/O resources. 3Leaf has licensed AMD’s Coherent HyperTransport technology, and announced last week an agreement to license Intel Corporation’s QuickPath Interconnect technology, enabling 3Leaf to support one hundred percent of the x86 server market.

3Leaf’s technology delivers a complete enterprise solution that fully virtualizes the CPU, memory, and I/O resources within the data center. This scalable, flexible, and dynamic data center infrastructure enables allocation of all server resources on demand, moving them in a just-in-time fashion to and from the applications, thereby maximizing resource usage and minimizing power consumption. This vastly simplifies management and allows businesses to effectively respond to spikes in utilization. As a result, data center infrastructure is more agile and flexible, and operational and capital costs are reduced.

Enabling the Dynamic Data Center
3Leaf’s Virtual Compute Environment is the core enabling technology for the Dynamic Data Center, which is being embraced by the industry as the next generation data center. The Dynamic Data Center leverages virtualization to bring agility and flexibility in resource deployment while at the same time lowering operating and capital costs. 3Leaf’s Virtual Compute Environment enables the Dynamic Data Center in a number of ways, delivering complete virtualization of server resources,  repurposing of workloads, and fast, flexible provisioning.

Virtualized Server Resources
Today’s data centers are inefficient, with server resources running as low as 10-15 percent utilization. Frequently, a single application consumes only a small fraction of the server’s capacity, and redundant configurations can waste even more resources. Virtualization of compute, memory, and I/O resources enables the creation of a pool of server resources that can be allocated and de-allocated as needed, increasing agility, scalability, and resource utilization while reducing both capital and operating expenditures by fifty percent. Virtualization of I/O resources alone reduces the number of NICs and HBAs by up to 85 percent, the number of Ethernet and Fibre Channel switch ports by up to 80 percent, and the number of cables by up to 70 percent.

Repurposing of Server Workloads
The ability to repurpose server workloads is key to managing changing data center requirements and maximizing data center resource utilization as workloads change during the course of the day, week, or month. Easy repurposing of data center resources enables server utilization to be maximized around the clock, minimizing capital outlay for dedicated server workloads and delivering up to 50 percent savings in power consumption.

Fast, Flexible Provisioning
Currently, provisioning a server can take weeks or months by the time the cable is laid and the networking and storage administrators have synchronized with the server administrator. 3Leaf’s Virtual Compute Environment decomposes servers into pools of virtualized resources. Provisioning a server is as simple as applying a software configuration to each server that specifies the allocated resources for that server, drastically reducing the time and cost of provisioning new servers.

3Leaf Systems V-8000 Virtual I/O Server is available, and the company’s CPU/Memory Server will be available in 2008.