Superior Performance of Emulex Gen 5 FC in HP StoreFabric Networking Products

Emulex Corporation announced the findings of a new Demartek lab evaluation that showcases the exceptional performance and horsepower of Emulex LightPulse Gen 5 FC HBAs over prior 8Gb FC based storage solutions.

         Decision Support Bandwidth per Adapter – 1 User
                                (Dual FC HBA pot: 16Gb vs. 8Gb)

In a test of  HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA provided by Emulex and the HP SN6000B 16b FC switch with an all-flash HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage system, the combined HP-Emulex solution provided the superior throughput, low latency and storage networking performance that storage-intensive applications require, such as backup/restore, client virtualization, software as a service, OLTP databases, and rich media.

“Enterprise data centers are feeling the stress of the increased demands for storage performance and bandwidth, brought on by the use of virtualized servers, database applications, solid state disks (SSDs), and flash caching,” said Shaun Walsh, SVP marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “Demartek’s report demonstrates that when HP’s StoreFabric Gen 5 FC solution provided by Emulex is coupled with PCIe 3.0 and SSDs, it can provide significant, measurable benefits and scale to data center applications vs. 8Gb FC technology, which will in turn save IT managers time and expense, while enabling them to take advantage of the newest HP ProLiant Servers, emerging high density virtualization and flash solutions in their data centers today.”

“Organizations with performance intensive applications are frustrated with legacy storage architectures that limit business productivity,” said Vish Mulchand, director of product management, storage, HP. “HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450 Storage and Emulex technology-based HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBAs meet today’s performance demands while building on a proven technology foundation.”

Key findings of the test comparing the HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBAs provided by Emulex against prior 8Gb FC technology in a data warehouse workload simulation include:

• Reduced Latency: The HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA reduced latency by more than 50% compared to the 8Gb FC HBA, improving data center productivity.
• Ease of Installation: The HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA offered a simple, plug-and play performance upgrade for the replacement of older 4Gb and 8Gb FC HBAs.
• Increased Speed: With the HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA, a real database six-user workload was completed up to 26% faster than with the 8Gb FC HBA.
• Doubled Peak Throughput: Based on the latest Emulex Gen 5 FC technology, the HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA delivered twice the peak throughput compared to the 8Gb FC HBA, further improving end user experience during fluctuating workloads or peak hours.

“In our database workload test, the HP StoreFabric SN1000E 16Gb FC HBA doubled the peak throughput, reduced latency by more than 50% and completed the workload 26% faster than the previous generation 8Gb FC HBA,” said Dennis Martin, president, Demartek. “We have concluded that faster storage networking technology such as Gen 5 FC is well-suited to SSD technology, which is being embraced in an increasing number of enterprise data centers.”

Overall, the evaluation showcased the Gen 5 FC technology delivered in the HP StoreFabric portfolio with Emulex and Brocade delivers performance and horsepower for today’s environments with growing performance requirements – such as virtualization servers, database applications, SSDs, flash caching, etc. As a result, these solutions further optimize IT resources, while maximizing performance of larger server virtualization deployments and cloud initiatives.