Qlogic 4010 Quick start guide

Brand: Qlogic

Model: 4010

Type: Quick start guide

This manual is also suitable for

SANbox2 SANbox2-64

C A S E S T U D Y

Indus

Corporation

QLogic 4010 HBAs Connect iSCSI

SAN Environment

Objective

To separate storage from servers without increasing

costs and sacriﬁcing performance.

Solution

Develop an iSCSI SAN using existing Ethernet infra-

structure.

Result

QLogic SANblade

™

4010 iSCSI host bus adapters

ofﬂoad TCP/IP and iSCSI processing to free expensive

server resources for business applications.

At Indus Corp., IT experts know from experience that monolithic storage

environments most often have two major points of failure: disk drives and

CPU heat. The challenge then becomes ﬁnding a way to maintain cost and

performance while separating storage from the servers.

For the past 15 years, Indus has focused on software engineering and enterprise

infrastructure support to build IT solutions in database management, data

warehousing and data mining. Applications include dynamic Web development,

geographic information systems, convergent communications solutions and

network/data security.

So when Robert Nase, Indus Director of Information Technology, designed a

storage platform to guide the IT services provider into the future, he created

an innovative iSCSI Ethernet-based SAN — powered by six SANblade 4010

iSCSI host bus adapters by QLogic.

“With a computing box and a storage box you can divide and conquer,” said

Nase, who consolidated his storage into several pools. “Essentially, we isolated

the disk drives and CPUs into their own elements.”

Why iSCSI?

iSCSI is a new protocol that enables block-oriented storage data to be carried by

Ethernet networks. The principal beneﬁt of iSCSI is that it simpliﬁes a network

by merging block and ﬁle data trafﬁc onto a single Ethernet infrastructure.

Nase said he didn’t agonize over selecting iSCSI instead of Fibre Channel

(FC), with its high bandwidth and almost limitless ability to connect devices.

Though familiar with FC, he believed that the more sophisticated interface was

unnecessary for his company of 500 employees in 12 U.S. ofﬁces, and opted

to maintain his existing Ethernet infrastructure.

With this speciﬁc mindset, Nase began exploring solutions that met performance

and cost requirements.

“I’ve tried every kind of TOE adapter and NIC, and there wasn’t an acceptable one

on the market; I like QLogic the best for performance and functionality. The other

products just don’t work for cost and performance. When I want to depend on the

transaction rate and error checking, I turn to QLogic.”

Robert Nase, Indus Director of CIO

Corporate Headquarters QLogic Corporation 26650 Aliso Viejo Parkway Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949.389.6000 www.qlogic.com

Europe Headquarters QLogic (UK) LTD. Surrey Technology Centre 40 Occam Road Guildford Surrey GU2 7YG UK +44 (0)1483 295825

C A S E S T U D Y

“iSCSI provides optimal performance for our type of computing

environment,” he said. “I didn’t think we needed the 2Gb throughput

of Fibre Channel; the 1Gb performance found with iSCSI was enough

for me.”

In addition, Nase said he was impressed with the QLogic TCP ofﬂoad

engine (TOE) that accelerates the performance of TCP/IP trafﬁc.

Without this kind of engine, the host system can become burdened

and starve both application performance and I/O performance.

What the Future Holds Indus is also in the midst of changing its backup

strategy to a multiple point solution that includes disk mirroring and

tape. The company will keep several iterations online, as well as

mirroring data to an offsite location for disaster recovery.

“This greatly simpliﬁes our procedures and lowers the cost of our

licenses,” Nase said.

But one thing is certain: as the company migrates its three Sun

servers into yet another array, QLogic and its SANblade 4010 iSCSI

adapters will be hard at work.

“I’ve tried every kind of TOE adapter and NIC, and there wasn’t an

acceptable one on the market; I like QLogic the best for performance

and functionality,” said Nase. “The other products just don’t work for

cost and performance. When I want to depend on the transaction rate

and error checking, I turn to QLogic.”

The Ethernet SAN Solution

The Indus SAN environment includes:

• Microsoft Exchange 2003 cluster with two Dell 6350 quad processor

servers.

• harePoint/KMS environment with two Dell 6350 quad processor

servers at the front end, and two Dell 6350 quad processor servers

as back-end database (SQL) servers.

• Each Dell server has a QLogic SANblade 4010 iSCSI HBA

• All six servers are connected to two networks; the front-end

network provides end-user access and the back-end network

connects the servers to two SANRAD Vswitch 3000 iSCSI targets

in a fault-tolerant pair.

• The SANRAD switches are connected to two arrays: a Nexsan

ATAboy (1.6TB), and an Infortrend SATA-based array (4TB).

Indus Corporation

©2004 QLogic Corporation. All rights reserved. QLogic, Powered by QLogic, QLA and SANbox are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. The QLogic logo, the Powered by QLogic logo, SANblade and SANbox2, SANsurfer Management Suite are trademarks

of QLogic Corporation, which may be registered in some jurisdictions. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Information supplied by QLogic Corporation is believed to be accurate and reliable.

QLogic Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure. QLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to make changes in product design or speciﬁcations.

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