Installation guide
5–Validation Methods for DCB and FCoE
Validation Step 6—iSCSI Function and I/O Test
5-28 51031-00 A
Table 5-5 lists the average, minimum, and maximum data.
The results show that:
Application performance does not decline when running concurrently on the
unified fabric.
Converged throughput is the sum of the individual application performances.
The 10G bandwidth is more efficient in a unified fabric.
There is no congestion in the combined traffic option, because the storage
device is the source of the bandwidth bottleneck, and not the converged link.
The highest speed for Fibre Channel storage is 4Gbps, and 10Gbps for
iSCSI storage. Fibre Channel storage throughput is about 90 percent of wire
speed, and iSCSI storage throughput is about 35 percent of wire speed.
There were no data integrity errors during the test.
In summary, this test clearly demonstrates the concept of a unified fabric. The
unified fabric can converge SAN and LAN applications with no loss of
performance or concerns about application interference. The unified fabric
maximizes the bandwidth usage and lowers TCO by simplifying the network
infrastructure and reducing the number of network devices.
Table 5-5. Performance Comparison Between Separate and Combined
Applications
Test option
FCoE only
(MBps)
iSCSI Only
(MBps)
FCoE and iSCSI (MBps)
FCoE iSCSI Combined
Average 390.670 365.706 380.240 351.356 740.507
Maximum 397.937 420.04 405.570 460.579 862.970
Minimum 275.835 0 169.261 63.266 454.195