Hardware Offload in a Converged Ethernet Environment Owner manual

ManualsBrandsQLogic ManualsHardware8200 Series The Value of Full

WHITE PAPER

Key Findings

QLogic

8200 Series Converged Network Adapter Advantages

• On-chip processing reduces CPU workload

• Field-proven Fibre Channel driver stack ensures data integrity

• Fibre Channel storage market leader

• 8.5 million ports install base assures widest interoperability and compatibility

• Principal design for all major OEMs

• Largest set of OEM server, OS, and storage qualifications

• Concurrent support for NIC, FCoE, and iSCS

• Enterprise-class reliability and error recovery

• Experienced storage and networking support staff

Open FCoE Initiative with a 10Gb Ethernet NIC Advantages

• Low initial cost

The Value of Full Hardware Offload in

a Converged Ethernet Environment

QLogic 8200 Series Offers Superior Performance Over

Software Initiators

Summary of content (7 pages)

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White Paper The Value of Full Hardware Offload in a Converged Ethernet Environment QLogic 8200 Series Offers Superior Performance Over Software Initiators Key Findings QLogic® 8200 Series Converged Network Adapter Advantages •• On-chip processing reduces CPU workload •• Field-proven Fibre Channel driver stack ensures data integrity •• Fibre Channel storage market leader •• 8.
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White Paper Executive Summary Most SANs today are built using Fibre Channel technology, which offers a highly reliable, robust, and mature storage protocol. The protocol meets the data integrity and performance requirements of enterprise data center customers running critical applications and enterprise storage solutions. However, there is a fast-emerging new standard, FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet), which promises to introduce the data center trend of consolidation to the network.
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White Paper Although virtualization is driving consolidation, it also imposes additional overhead on the CPU, network, and I/O. Virtualized environments use the hypervisor to perform software emulation to abstract IT resources away from the physical hardware. This method comes at a considerable cost, as CPU overhead is incurred because virtual resources need to be mapped to physical resources. Additional overhead in a VM scaling environment further compounds the problem.
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White Paper Server virtualization is an ideal candidate for FCoE because the increased bandwidth of 10GbE can support high throughput from multiple VMs. In addition, mobility of virtual servers, load balancing, and failover will require similarly high throughput, especially when it is being shared by multiple VMs. Herein is the problem with Open FCoE; decreased scalability, increased bottlenecks, and hidden costs.
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White Paper the process of resending those that are dropped while requiring minimal assistance from the CPU and ensuring ongoing performance. The CPU cycle stealing approach, whether it’s for processing the driver stack, traversing data packets over the PCI bus, or for verifying the integrity of the data, is inefficient. By saving a few pennies on a NIC rather than purchasing a Converged Network Adapter, hidden costs will begin to materialize in the form of degrading performance of the data center.
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White Paper approach versus software initiators, which only offer cost savings. Despite the fact that cost is an important factor in the adoption of FCoE, a successful implementation is not possible if performance and reliability suffer materially as a consequence. Outside of price, new FCoE software initiators and partial offload solutions will have a difficult time competing with full offload technology.
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White Paper 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.