White PapersEmulex dual-channel LightPulse 4Gbit/s HBAs provide the highest performance for business-critical applications, throughput that is 78 percent greater than that of the nearest competitor, and transaction rates that exceed the competition by up to 36 percent. This paper describes the data characteristics associated with business-critical applications and the advantages of Emulex LightPulse HBAs in those applications.
White PaperIntroductionWhen a territory manager runs a query on today s sales, or a factory manager plans tomorrow s production flow, they expect instantaneous response from their information systems. When a CEO reviews his IT spending for the year, he wants to see lower capital and operating costs, faster and more reliable disaster recovery, and a more agile, consolidated IT infrastructure.For all these reasons, every component in the modern data center must work at full capacity, all the time. Today s enterprise cannot afford down time or products that deliver anything but the highest performance in real business conditions.Among the applications that have the highest need for data throughput are streaming media, data warehousing (required to analyze key business trends) and server virtualization (which greatly reduces IT capital expenses and data center space requirements). Applications that have the highest need for fastest transaction rates are databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. The Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) that links servers to storage networks is a critical link in the fow of data. Determining which HBAs deliver this performance is critical, especially in a world of high-density blade servers and virtualized server and storage resources. To most accurately evaluate HBA performance, it is important to understand the actual workloads the HBA will handle, as well as those elements of HBA design which determine its real-world performance.Many of today s business-critical enterprise applications demand the performance that can only be provided by the latest 4Gb/s dual-channel Fibre Channel HBA technology. Emulex LIghtPulse dual-channel HBAs are the clear leader when it comes to real-world performance and scalability. Emulex 4Gb/s dual-channel HBAs boast throughput that is 78% greater than that of the nearest competitor and transaction rates that exceed the competition by up to 36%. Combined with Emulex s superior quality, Business-Critical Applications: Full Throughput, All the TimeAt A glAnceEmulex dual-channel LightPulse HBAs provide the highest performance for business-critical applications. In fact, Emulex 4Gb/s dual-channel HBAs boast throughput that is 78% greater than that of the nearest competitor and transaction rates that exceed the competition by up to 36%. This paper describes the data characteristics associated with business-critical applications and the advantages of Emulex LightPulse HBAs in those applications.ProductsEmulex LightPulse LP11002 Emulex LightPulse LPe11002 Emulex LightPulse LP1105 Emulex LightPulse LPe1105 APPlIcAtIonsDatabase, data warehousing, data movement, and backupUntitled Document reliability, and manageability, it s no wonder that Emulex HBAs remain the deployment leader in the world s largest enterprises.Measuring Actual PerformanceThe performance of a Fibre Channel HBA is often measured using two common metrics. One is the number of I/O (input/output) transactions that can be performed per second, referred to as IOPS. The second way to measure performance is the number of bytes of data that can be moved per second, which is measured in MB/s.When considering the performance of a Fibre Channel HBA, it really makes the most sense to understand its performance characteristics at the working data size used by the applications it will need to support.Consider, for example, databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, which support enterprise applications such as SAP or the transactional applications that make sales possible. Or consider the datastore used by Microsoft Exchange, the backbone of many companies email and messaging systems. Such applications typically exchange data in blocks ranging from 4Kb to 8Kb in size. The performance of Emulex dual-channel HBAs is designed to excel at these critical data sizes. The Emulex LPe11002 performs up to 36% more IOPS in the data range most used by these applications compared to the Qlogic QLE2462 (Chart 1). cPu efficiency Host bus adapters can offload the server CPU from managing I/O, thereby increasing the number of server CPU cycles available for application processing. The Emulex LPe11002 excels at offloading transactional I/O workloads (typified by Microsoft Exchange) by providing 27% greater CPU efficiency over the QLogic QLE2462. This CPU efficiency advantage translates into increased CPU cycles for server applications and cost savings on server configurations.chart 1: I/o transaction performance of data sizes typical of business-critical applicationschart : cPu effectivenessExchange I/O Prole05001000150020002500Untitled DocumentWhite paper Making every Port countWhen customers purchase a dual-channel HBA, they expect they will get the advertised throughput through both ports. Some competing 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs deliver optimum throughput through only one port, with performance degrading significantly through the second port. This cripples the performance of the server in which they are placed, as well as wasting space, electrical power and cooling capacity. The performance difference can be clearly seen in the following charts.These performance charts1 show that the Emulex LPe11002 provides throughput that most closely utilizes the full performance of 4Gb/s Fibre Channel and the PCI Express bus. In fact, it exceeds the competition by 200MB/s in read throughput (Chart 3), and by a massive 640MB/s in full-duplex operations (Chart 4), when measured at the data sizes most often used by business applications. The Emulex full duplex performance in Chart 4 is significant since it is accomplished at 64Kb data block size, the large block data size used frequently by data backup applications. When required to perform full duplexing, in fact, the competitor s 4Gb/s HBA delivers no full duplex throughput advantage over a single-channel HBA. Emulex thus provides 78% greater bandwidth over the nearest competitor with its 4Gb/s dual-channel HBAs and significant transactional performance advantages at the data sizes most often used by business applications. The Emulex dual-channel LP11002 and LPe11002 4Gb/s HBAs and LP1105/LPe1105 based Blade Server solutions offer the highest data throughput performance available for high performance Fibre Channel storage computing needs.chart : Maximum read throughput for concurrent dual-port operation of 4gb/s HBAschart 4: concurrent full-duplex throughput of 4gb/s dual-channel HBAs1) All performance results used in these comparisons were made on commonly available server and storage hardware. The Emulex LPe11002 HBA used the latest HBA driver and frmware available to OEM customers. HBA drivers for competitor s HBA were the latest publicly available as of 12/27/06, and all parameters are set to factory defaults.Untitled DocumentWhite paperwww.emulex.comcorporate HQ: 3333 Susan Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (714) 662-5600Wokingham, u.K. (44) 118-977-2929 | Paris, France (33) 41-91 19-90 Beijing, china (86 10) 6849-954707-352 12/06conclusionWhen evaluating HBAs for a demanding data center environment, customers need to carefully examine how the HBAs will perform under business conditions, running actual business applications. Customers should carefully evaluate the conditions under which performance tests are run, as well as the design characteristics of the HBA, to ensure they deliver the needed throughput for applications. The Emulex LPe11002 thus provides nearly twice the bandwidth of the Qlogic QLE2462 and significant transactional performance advantages at the data sizes most often used by business applications. The Emulex dual-channel LP11002 and LPe11002 4Gb/s HBAs and LP1105/LPe1105 based Blade Server solutions offer the highest data throughput performance available for high performance Fibre Channel storage computing needs.Key MessagesEmulex dual-channel 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs offer the highest performance for critical business applications over the Qlogic QLE2462:c 36% greater IOPS at block sizes used by Oracle, SQL and Exchangec Over 640 MB/s (78%) greater data throughputc 27% greater CPU effciency This document refers to various companies and products by their trade names. In most, if not all cases, their respective companies claim these designations as trademarks or registered trademarks. This information is provided for reference only. Although this information is believed to be accurate and reliable at the time of publication, Emulex assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Emulex reserves the right to make changes or corrections without notice. This report is the property of Emulex Corporation and may not be duplicated without permission from the Company.
