To remain competitive, IT organizations must keep pace with ever-increasing workloads without a similar increase in their budgets or resources. While virtualization has provided some relief by enabling the benefits of faster deployment & consolidation, it tends to put additional stress on data center networks. The HP SN3000B 16 Gb Fibre Channel Switch meets the needs of hyper-scale, private cloud storage environments by delivering market-leading 16 Gb Fibre Channel technology & capabilities that support highly virtualized environments. Designed to enable maximum flexibility & investment protection, the SN3000B switch scales from 12 to 24 ports & supports 4, 8, or 16 Gb/s speeds in an efficiently designed 1U package. It also provides a simplified deployment process & a point-&-click user interface making it powerful & easy to use. It offers low-cost access to SAN technology while providing "pay-as-you-grow" scalability to meet the needs of an evolving storage environment.