six reasons to choose qlogic 8gb fibre channel adapters...

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Six Reasons to Choose QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters Over Emulex

Proven QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters

Low Power, Superior Virtualized Performance, and Reliability

Executive Summary

Since 4Gb Fibre Channel adapters were first introduced in 2005, technology advancements such as multi-core server processors (for example, the Intel® Nehalem-EX eight-core processors launched March 2010), and industry trends such as the move towards virtualization, are compelling SAN administrators to deploy 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters.

This white paper compares QLogic and Emulex® 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters, with a focus on what matters to SAN administrators: power, performance, and scalability. The comparison shows that QLogic outperforms Emulex in all of these categories.

Key Findings

Choosing QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters over Emulex has the following advantages:

• Proven Leadership. According to the Dell’ Oro Group, QLogic has increased their market share in the Fibre Channel adapter port market every year since 2005, when 4Gb Fibre Channel adapters first began shipping. QLogic is number one the marketplace, with a double-digit lead over the nearest competitor. With over 7-million ports shipped and deployed

across multiple hardware platforms and operating systems, QLogic Fibre Channel adapters have been battle tested in major enterprise data centers. In addition, QLogic offers the broadest 8Gb Fibre Channel adapter portfolio for standard rack, tower, and blade servers (compared to competing Fibre Channel adapter vendors).

• Lower Power Consumption. QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters with Dynamic Power Management use up to 44 percent less power than Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters. In today’s cost conscious environment, QLogic adapters’ low power consumption translates to tangible total cost of ownership benefits (TCO) for the end user.

• Superior Real-World Application Performance. QLogic achieves up to 224 percent higher IOPS in Microsoft® Exchange Server and up to 47 percent higher IOPS in Oracle® applications, compared to Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters.

• Unmatched Performance and Scalability in Virtualized Environments. QLogic performance scales up to 44 percent higher in Hyper-V™ and up to 46.8 percent higher in VMware® vSphere™ virtualized environments, compared to Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters.

• Open Standards Based Quality of Service. QLogic SANsurfer® tools allow users to create virtual ports and assign quality of service (QoS) to each virtual port. Business-critical

Six Reasons to Choose QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters Over Emulex Proven QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters

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applications can be assigned dedicated bandwidth or priority, allowing the end user to better utilize I/O resources versus Emulex.

• Up to Five-Year Warranty. QLogic’s limited warranty is for five years; Emulex’s is for three years.

Introduction

Many technology advances and market trends have increased the need for additional bandwidth and speed on the host server side. Multi-socket servers with multi-core processors now provide more processing power in a single physical server. In March 2010, IBM®

announced their fifth-generation X-Architecture® technology, which enables six times more memory on a physical server compared to previous generation servers. To fully utilize these powerful servers, IT professionals are deploying virtualization by hosting multiple operating systems and applications on the same physical server. Virtualization requires more bandwidth from the Fibre Channel Adapter.

Many of today’s companies have international operations that require employees worldwide to have access to data nearly 24×7, 365 days a year. The time available to perform backups (backup window) is decreasing, and the backup must be completed as quickly as possible. Moving from a 4Gb adapter to an 8Gb adapter can reduce the backup time by up to 50 percent.

On the storage side, solid-state drives (SSDs) are starting to be deployed in place of traditional mechanical drives. Because SSDs are significantly faster than mechanical drives, the I/O performance on the server side must increase to ensure that the server does not become the bottleneck.

To meet these new data center requirements, it is important for enterprise SAN administrators to deploy 8Gb Fibre Channel adapter technology—it is equally important to choose the right 8G Fibre Channel adapter. As summarized in the previous section, QLogic’s 8Gb Fibre Channel adapter portfolio is ideally suited to meet the needs of the evolving data center. IT managers who choose the QLogic adapter portfolio can rest easy for the following key reasons.

Reason #1: Proven Leadership

• QLogic was the first to announce production shipments of 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters in February 2008.

• QLogic was the first to begin production shipments of quad-port 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters in June 2009. Emulex announced availability of their 8Gb Fibre Channel quad-port adapter in September 2009.

However, just because a company is first to ship a new technology does not mean that it can maintain its position in the market over a sustained period of time. Leadership position is ultimately determined by customer preference. In the case of Fibre Channel Adapters, QLogic’s market share has continued to increase every year for the past five years. This time span includes the period when 4Gb Fibre Channel Adapters were introduced in 2005, and the period when 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters were introduced in 2008. The following chart, based on data from the Dell’Oro Group’s 2008 and 2009 SAN Reports, shows that users consistently favor QLogic Fibre Channel Adapters over Emulex Fibre Channel Adapters for a five-year period. In 2009, QLogic’s market share was 55.7 percent, compared to Emulex at 37.9 percent.

QLogic Fibre Channel Adapter Port Market ShareSource: Dell’Oro Group SAN Report 2Q08 (2005, 2006); SAN Report 4Q09

(2007–2009)

Although QLogic and Emulex both offer single-port, dual-port, and quad-port standard adapters, only QLogic offers an IBM CFFh dual 8Gb Fibre Channel and dual 1Gb Ethernet mezzanine form factor for the IBM BladeCenter®.

In addition, the Dell’Oro Group 4QCY09 SAN report shows that QLogic has over 70 percent of the Fibre Channel blade port market share, while Emulex has less than 30 percent market share.

Reason #2: Lower Power Consumption

QLogic’s Dynamic Power Management automatically reduces power consumption (without IT administrator interaction) by using the minimum number of PCI Express® lanes to accommodate the maximum Fibre Channel bandwidth in a PCI Express Gen2 slot. Even in a Gen1 PCI Express slot, and without Dynamic Power Management, QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters use less power than Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters, as shown in the following table.


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PCI Express Gen1 Slot (Without Dynamic Power Management)

QLogic QLE256x

Emulex LPe1200x1

% Less Power than Emulex

Single Port 5.5W 6.9W 20

Dual Port 6.2W 8.8W 30

1Per Emulex documentation.

In a PCI Express Gen2 slot, QLogic’s Dynamic Power Management feature allows even greater power savings over Emulex, as shown in the following table.

PCI Express Gen2 Slot (With Dynamic Power Management)

QLogic QLE256x

Emulex LPe1200x1

% Less Power than Emulex

Single Port 4.2W 6.9W 39

Dual Port 4.9W 8.8W 44

1Per Emulex documentation.

Reason #3: Superior Real-World Application Performance

When it comes to advertising Fibre Channel performance numbers, other Fibre Channel Adapter vendors use test configurations that are not typical of real-world enterprise data centers. For example, test results showing “real-world” performance using a Third I/O storage platform have been published by Emulex. How many “real-world” SAN configurations use Third I/O as the storage platform?

In Microsoft Exchange Server and Oracle environments, QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters outperform Emulex adapters when it comes to performance, where performance is measured as throughput (MBps) for large data volumes, and as IOPS for smaller data size transactions.

MS-Exchange

E-mail is one of the most important communication and collaboration applications for conducting business around the world. According to a report from The Radicati Group1, Microsoft Exchange Server is expected to have a total install base of 285 million mailboxes for both in-sourced and hosted exchange by 2012—an annual growth rate of 11 percent. In a comparison performed by QLogic, the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters demonstrated better throughput and IOPS

1 The Radicati Group, Inc., Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook Analysis, 2008–2012

compared to the Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters; therefore, the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters supported the additional demand of Microsoft Exchange e-mail volume and increased workloads. This comparison showed that:

• Driving Microsoft Exchange-like I/O loads in an attempt to saturate the adapters showed 17 percent better IOPS and 34 percent better throughput for the QLogic 8Gb adapters versus the Emulex 8Gb adapters.

• The Emulex LPe12000 failed to keep pace with QLogic adapters when Microsoft Exchange workloads increased. At 32 outstanding I/Os, QLogic 8Gb adapters scaled 224 percent better in IOPS and 110 percent better in MBps than Emulex 8Gb adapters.

For additional details about the performance of 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters in Microsoft Exchange, see the document at the following link:

http://www.qlogic.com/Resources/Documents/WhitePapers/Adapters/SN0230963-00.pdf




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Oracle

Today’s mission-critical online transaction processing (OLTP), online analytical processing (OLAP), and Web applications demand the highest levels of performance from their database servers and storage infrastructure.

In a comparison performed by QLogic, the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters outperformed the Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters in multiple real-world OLTP, OLAP, and Web scenarios using SAN-attached Oracle databases. This comparison showed that:

• In high-performance database applications, emulated with Oracle workloads, QLogic 8Gb adapters delivered up to 47 percent higher IOPS compared to Emulex 8Gb adapters.

– OLTP: up to 42 percent higher IOPS

– Web applications: up to 45 percent higher IOPS

– OLAP: up to 47 percent higher IOPS

For additional details about the performance of 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters in Oracle environments, see the document at the following link:

http://www.qlogic.com/Resources/Documents/WhitePapers/Adapters/PX2832002-00.pdf

Reason #4: Unmatched Performance and Scalability in Virtualized Environments

To meet the growing demands of virtualized environments, IT administrators must deploy a scalable, high-performance adapter architecture that can address the demands of multiple virtual machines (VMs) running on a physical server.

QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters outperform Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters with respect to scalability, IOPS, and throughput

in both Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere virtualized environments.

Microsoft Hyper-V

Enterprise data centers are adopting server virtualization technologies to optimize and streamline the deployment of their enterprise applications. For those deploying a Windows® environment, Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 provides virtualization technology out-of-the-box with Hyper-V.

In a comparison performed by QLogic, the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters demonstrated better scalability, higher IOPS, and higher throughput in Hyper-V environments compared to Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters. This comparison showed that:

• The QLogic 8Gb adapters demonstrated up to 44 percent superior VM scalability than the Emulex 8Gb adapters. The QLogic adapters continued to scale as VM workloads were increased from two to eight.

• The QLogic 8Gb adapters achieved up to 48 percent higher IOPS and throughput compared to the Emulex 8Gb adapters:

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 48 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential read operations.

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 18 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential write operations.

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 40 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential read/write operations.

For additional details about the performance of 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters in Microsoft Hyper-V, see the document at the following link:

http://www.qlogic.com/Resources/Documents/WhitePapers/Adapters/HSG-WP09004.pdf






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VMware

In a comparison performed by QLogic, the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters demonstrated better scalability, higher IOPS, and higher throughput in VMware vSphere environments. This comparison showed that:

• Virtual machine scalability: the QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters scale up to 42.5 percent more than the Emulex 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters.

• QLogic 8Gb adapters achieved up to 22 percent higher IOPS and up to 46.8 percent higher throughput compared to Emulex 8Gb adapters:

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 10.7 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential read operations.

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 32.8 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential write operations.

– QLogic 8Gb adapter IOPS were up to 11.1 percent higher, and throughput was up to 14.3 percent higher than Emulex when performing sequential read/write operations.

For additional details about the performance of 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters in VMware vSphere, see document at the following link:

http://www.qlogic.com/Resources/Documents/WhitePapers/Adapters/8Gb_Fibre_Channel_Scalability_Advantage_in_VMware4-outperforms_Emulex.pdf

Reason #5: Open Standards Based Quality of Service

According to Gartner1, 50 percent of all x86 server workloads will be virtualized by 2012. Although virtualization in the data center is growing rapidly, there are still challenges to overcome. One challenge is the ability to assign a different QoS based on the type of virtual machine. Some applications require higher priority or more bandwidth: for example, a virtual machine running an OLTP application may require higher bandwidth or priority than a virtual machine running a backup application. QLogic’s SANsurfer tools provide the answer: not only can administrators manage NPIV ports, they can also assign a QoS level to each virtual machine—all while adhering to open standards.

Being able to create, remove, and monitor NPIV ports is only one part of the virtualization management solution. IT administrators also want to assign QoS to NPIV ports (depending on the type of application that is using the port) to guarantee Service Level Agreement for the applications. With SANsurfer tools, administrators can assign QoS to each NPIV port based on priority or bandwidth. The following diagram shows how to configure QoS based on either the speed or the percentage of available bandwidth.

1 Gartner Says 16 Percent of Workloads are Running in Virtual Machines

Today (Analysts Examine the Growth in Server Virtualization during Gartner

Symposium/ITxpo, October 18-22, 2009, in Orlando, Florida)





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After configuring NPIV and assigning QoS using SANsurfer FC HBA Manager, Microsoft’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) can monitor IOPS and throughput on both the physical and virtual ports. If a virtual or physical port’s IOPS or throughput does not meet a pre-defined threshold for a period of time, SCVMM migrates the virtual machine running on the port to another Hyper-V host on the SAN. The ability to configure, monitor, and migrate workloads on demand provides administrators with a solution to optimize their virtualized environments.

For more details on using QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters with SCVMM, see the document at the following link:

http://filedownloads.qlogic.com/files/ms/74234/R2_QLogic_Edits_SC_VMM2008_PRO_Solution_Brief.pdf

Reason #6: Up to Five-Year Warranty

Traditionally, Fibre Channel Adapter suppliers offer a standard three-year limited warranty on their products. For example, Emulex offers a three-year warranty on their Fibre Channel Adapters. However, QLogic goes beyond this standard warranty, offering a FREE two-year extension to the standard three-year coverage. This free program gives QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel (-CK and -E SKUs) customers an

unprecedented five-year, limited warranty coverage.

QLogic QLE256x

Emulex LPe1200x

Standard three-year warranty Yes Yes

Two-year extended warranty (no charge)

Yes No

Total five-year limited warranty

Yes No

For complete details of QLogic’s Fibre Channel adapter warranty coverage, go to:

http://www.qlogic.com/Support/Pages/Warranty.aspx?id=m12

Summary and Conclusion

Continuing technology advancements—such as increasing the number of cores in multi-core processors, IBM’s new X-Architecture (which has six times more available memory in a physical server), and virtualization software from Microsoft and VMware—are allowing more applications to run on a single physical server. On the storage side, SSDs, which are faster than traditional mechanical drives, are starting to be deployed in today’s improved data center.

To ensure that the Fibre Channel Adapter does not become the bottleneck, IT SAN administrators will need to install 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters instead of 4Gb Fibre Channel Adapters.

IT professionals have a choice when selecting an 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter to help meet the new SAN performance requirements in 2010 and beyond.

The comparison in this white paper shows that QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters are the right choice when customers want the lowest power consumption, the highest real-world application performance, and the highest performance and comprehensive management in virtualized environments. In addition to these advantages, QLogic has the broadest portfolio of 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters, is preferred by SAN administrators, and offers an industry-leading five-year limited warranty.



http://www.qlogic.com/Support/Pages/Warranty.aspx?id=m12


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Corporate Headquarters QLogic Corporation 26650 Aliso Viejo Parkway Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949-389-6000 www.qlogic.com

Europe Headquarters QLogic (UK) LTD. Quatro House Lyon Way, Frimley Camberley Surrey, GU16 7ER UK +44 (0) 1276-804-670

© 2011 QLogic Corporation. Specifications are subject to change without notice. All rights reserved worldwide. QLogic, the QLogic logo, and SANsurfer are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. Emulex is a registered trademark of Emulex Corporation. IBM and BladeCenter are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Microsoft, Hyper-V, and Windows Server are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. PCI Express is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG Corporation. VMware and vSphere are trademarks or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information supplied by QLogic Corporation is believed to be accurate and reliable. QLogic Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure. QLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or specifications.

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Disclaimer

Reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the validity and accuracy of these performance tests. QLogic Corporation is not liable for any error in this published white paper or the results thereof. Variation in results may be a result of change in configuration or in the environment. QLogic specifically disclaims any warranty, expressed or implied, relating to the test results and their accuracy, analysis, completeness or quality.

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