Amid shrinking I/O virtualization market, Xsigo I/O Director brings flexibility to IT shops

Virtual I/O, also known as I/O virtualization (IOV), hasn’t proven as popular yet as server virtualization or even storage virtualization. Most of the startups that offered the technology a few years ago are gone. Aprius Inc. and 3Leaf Systems went out of business, and Virtensys Ltd. was acquired by Micron Technology Inc. in January. At the time of the acquisition, Micron said it would use Virtensys’ PCIe virtualization technology to virtualize Micron’s solid-state drive (SSD) storage. That leaves Xsigo Systems Inc. and NextIO Inc. as dedicated I/O virtualization vendors, although larger vendors use the technology with networks running their servers and connectivity. Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Virtual Connect is an example of vendor-specific I/O virtualization. But while the options for I/O virtualization are dwindling, the need for it is not. Xsigo has been able to capitalize on the rise of virtualization in the data center and cloud computing as well as renewed interest in InfiniBand to gain traction with its Xsigo I/O Director, which connects x86 servers to any storage or network devices. Read more