Emulex 16Gb FC for EMC VMAX

Emulex Corporation announced that its Engine (XE)201 I/O Controller provides Gen 5 FC connectivity on the target side for the EMC VMAX enterprise storage arrays, enabling 16Gb FC from server, to switch, to storage.

VMAX 10K and 40K storage arrays also provide data integrity protection with support for the T10 Protection Information standard (T10 PI). When combined with Emulex Gen 5 FC (8Gb FC and 16Gb FC) HBAs with T10 PI and supported OSs, customers can benefit from protection against costly and time consuming silent data corruption.

“EMC and Emulex are delivering a true 16Gb FC end-to-end infrastructure that addresses the new demands of the data centre for flash, I/O caching, server virtualisation and big data,” said Shaun Walsh, SVP marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “As Gen 5 FC adoption continues to ramp, Emulex connectivity solutions on both the host and target side will provide next-generation management, application optimisation, virtualisation and scalability, providing more than just a speed bump in performance.”

VMAX 10K and 40K storage arrays, when paired with Gen 5 FC technology, provide an end-to-end 16Gb FC enterprise storage solution delivering the necessary performance, availability, and intelligence for virtualised data centres. Emulex Gen 5 FC technology, when leveraged in target mode, enables high level [1] of performance for storage connectivity.

“The EMC VMAX storage arrays extend our lead in tier-1 storage,” said: Isabelle Guis, VP marketing, enterprise storage division, EMC. “Emulex Gen 5 FC technology complements our mission-critical offering for many customers in the EMC Select program with needs for reliability data integrity, high performance, and ease of use, thanks to seamless compatibility and upgrades.”

LightPulse Gen 5 FC HBAs based on  XE201 I/O Controller
and supports range of features for server initiator and storage target modes:

• Performance: Gen 5 FC technology is the industry’s fastest, with more than 1.2 million IO/s on a single port [1], which is seven times faster than current HBAs being offered by Emulex’s nearest competitor [2]. Field-proven Gen 5 FC technology is for EMC customers that are building next generation data centres designed for speed and agility.
• Data protection with performance offload: Gen 5 FC technology supports the T10 Protection Information (T10 PI) standard, providing enhanced data protection against silent data corruption as data traverses the system from the OS all the way to the disk array. Newest Gen 5 FC technology also includes performance, hardware offload of data integrity checks, eliminating the 30% performance penalty of software-enabled T10 PI [3].
• Reliability: Gen 5 FC technology is reliable, with more than 10 million hours MTBF [4] on the LightPulse family of HBAs with features fewer moving parts than other Gen 5 HBAs [2].

LightPulse Gen 5 FC HBAs support a broad portfolio of EMC storage arrays and are qualified for use through the EMC Select program. Emulex second-generation LightPulse LPe16000B Gen 5 HBAs are also available for use with EMC storage arrays through the EMC Select program. Gen 5 FC HBAs are for I/O intensive applications such as flash caching, high-density virtualisation environments and databases. When used with EMC XtremSW Cache intelligent server flash caching software, Gen 5 FC HBAs provide a performance solution, reducing overall latency and increasing SAN performance.

[1] Demartek Emulex LPe16000B 16Gb FC HBA Evaluation, October 2012
[2] Demartek Emulex LPe16000B 16Gb FC HBA Feature Comparison, December 2012
[3] Based on Emulex Labs benchmark testing
[4] Emulex 16GFC HBAs data sheet