There was a time when 4Gb Fibre Channel (4GFC) was always enough to get the job done, but with today’s most needed and I/O hungry applications, and the now-available powerful Intel® Xeon® E5 server platform, sometimes even 8GFC may not be enough. So if your customers are feeling an I/O bottleneck pinch, it’s time to think about 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC). Applications driving the migration to 16GFC are:
- Heavy Virtualization – More and more data centers are beginning to run at least 25 virtual machines (VMs) per server
- Large Databases and Data Warehousing – Large-scale high-frequency mission-critical Oracle and SLP applications demand extreme I/O bandwidth
- Backup and Recovery – More storage means larger and more frequent backups. In addition, recovery times need to be as fast as possible. Using 16GFC can not only shortens the time windows required for backup and recover; but it improves the underlying data integrity
- Private Cloud Deployments – Speed is everything with the cloud. As deployments become more robust, the demand for input/output operations per second (IOPS) and low latency are a necessity to avoid I/O bottlenecks and maintain customer Quality of Service (QoS).
You might ask, “Is 16GFC really available today?” The answer is an emphatic YES. 16GFC storage and switches are already shipping. Brocade’s for example, has stated that a full 23% of their FC switches shipping today are 16GFC switches.1 The applications and hardware are there for 16GFC deployment. It’s time to make the leap to 16GFC.
New! Emulex LightPulse®16GFC LPe16000 HBAs for EMC
When it comes to EMC rack server storage units, adding 16GFC HBAs are essential in keeping up with the current and future trends and demands of today’s modern data centers, and Emulex has great news! Today, we announced that Emulex LightPulse® 16GFC Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) are now available for EMC storage arrays. We’re excited that EMC customers can be guaranteed that their new Emulex 16GFC HBAs are completely compatible with all EMC storage products through the EMC Select program!
Coming from a company that owns 87% of the 16GFC HBA market share and offering the fastest 16GFC HBA, winning nearly every design win from top OEMs, Emulex can say for certain when you buy Emulex LightPulse 16GFC HBAs, you’re getting the best adapter in the world:
- Offers “best-in-industry” fastest and most robust 16GFC HBA capable of more than 1 million IOPS2
- vScale™ performance and scalability—multi-core ASIC engine with eight cores supports 255 VFs, 1024 MSi-X and 8192 logins/open exchanges for maximum VM density—up to 4x more than any other adapter on the market
- GreenState™ power efficiency—reduces data center power consumption and associated OPEX by delivering exceptional power to port ratios
- BlockGuard® exclusive end-to-end data integrity technology, preventing silent data corruption and costly system downtime
- vEngine™ CPU offload—lowers CPU burden on host server, enabling support for more VMs
- And more…
For EMC storage users that aren’t ready to adopt a complete 16GFC ecosystem, 16GFC HBAs are still a viable option that has benefits over 8GFC HBAs even when running at 8GFC. Emulex 16GFC HBAs will double the IOPS at half the latency in an 8GFC HBA ecosystem2. And believe it or not, customers can save money purchasing 16GFC HBAs, in fact up to 30% per HBA when you factor in lower cabling costs, reduction in HBAs required to meet bandwidth needs and they will even lower power consumption!
All in all, it’s a win-win. And as EMC OEM Product Manager at Emulex, I’m excited for our existing and new EMC customers to take advantage of the future of Fibre Channel technology
Find out More:
- Visit the Emulex EMC website
- Download the EMC LightPulse 16GFC HBA Data Sheet
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