ESG Lab Review
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Expanding the Connectivity and Value of Information Assets
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Copyright © 2006, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ESG Lab Review
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The goal of the ESG Lab reports is to educate customers about specific storage-related products including storage
systems, backup-to-disk solutions, storage management applications, backup/recovery software, storage
virtualization platforms, etc. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the necessary evaluation process that end
user customers should conduct. ESG Lab reports are designed to provide insight to what is compelling about
various products and how they can solve customer problems. ESG Lab provides third-party expert perspective
based on ESG Lab analysis and interviews with customers using these products in production environments.
All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise
Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from
time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part,
whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of the Enterprise Strategy Group,
Inc., is in violation of U.S. Copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any
questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at (508) 482.0188.
Enterprise Strategy Group 2
ESG Lab Review
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QLogic made its name in the IT industry as a trusted provider of Fibre Channel host bus adapters.
Leveraging the market-leading strength and success of the adapter business, QLogic has expanded its
product line significantly in recent years. Through internal development and a series of strategic
acquisitions, QLogic is delivering on its new vision of being a provider of networked services which IT
managers can use as a foundation for the next generation of grid-enabled applications.
As shown in Figure One, the foundation of QLogic’s expanded product line is the connectivity services
layer. The connectivity layer begins with Fibre Channel, iSCSI and InfiniBand adapters, which are used to
connect servers to shared storage and to each other for high speed clustering. A growing family of Fibre
Channel switches, InfiniBand switches, and unified management software completes the end-to-end
connectivity layer. A more recent addition is the data services layer. Services provided at this level
include data migration, point-in-time imaging, replication and extension. Connectivity and data services
provide the foundation for the delivery of the networked services needed to implement next generation
grid architectures.
Figure One: An Expanding Product Portfolio Enables Networked Services
IT managers moving towards grid architectures are increasingly adopting service-oriented application
architectures. QLogic’s networked services are designed to plug into these service-oriented
architectures. The services provided at this layer are used to consolidate virtualized servers and storage,
optimize performance, improve quality of service and enhance security. When you put it all together,
QLogic provides the connectivity and services needed for the liquid provisioning and management of
network attached resources.
ESG Lab recently evaluated a comprehensive test bed that included QLogic’s core product lines (FC
adapters and stackable switches) and the latest connectivity and services offerings (stackable “Designed
to the Core” switches with a new bladed architecture, intelligent storage routers, storage services
platforms, InfiniBand switches and adapters). This report summarizes that evaluation and focuses on
the flexibility, reliability, performance and value of QLogic’s growing product line.
Enterprise Strategy Group 3
ESG Lab Review
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The test bed provided by QLogic for this ESG Lab Review is shown in Figure Two
1
. Fibre Channel and
iSCSI adapters were used to connect servers to shared storage within a data center and a simulated
remote site. InfiniBand adapters and switches were used to connect servers to each other for high speed
clustering. A recently announced SANbox 9000 high-density Core switch was deployed for core SAN
connectivity, and stackable SANbox 5600 and 5200 switches were used at the distribution layer and at the
edge. A recently announced 8200 platform and StoreAge software was used to evaluate data services
including point-in-time images and online data migration. A recently announced 6140 series storage
router was used to extend SAN connectivity to a simulated remote site. And last, but not least, an entry-
level SAN at the remote site was created using a SANbox 1400 switch and iSCSI adapter-enabled access
to Fibre Channel storage served from the core of the storage network. All in all, the test bed provided an
excellent means for illustrating the connectivity, data and network services provided by QLogic’s
expanding product portfolio.
Figure Two: The Expanding QLogic Product Portfolio Reviewed by ESG Lab
The QLogic products highlighted in the configuration shown above:
• Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI host bus adapters for connecting servers to a storage network
•
SANbox 5000 series stackable switches for edge SAN connectivity
•
A new SANbox 9000 ultra-high density switch for core SAN connectivity
•
InfiniBand Host Channel Adapters and switches for a high speed link between clustered servers
•
A SANbox 8000 series Storage Services Platform
•
A SANbox 6000 series Intelligent Storage Router extending FC SAN connectivity to a remote site
•
An entry-level SANbox 1400 series FC switch for workgroup SAN connectivity at a remote site
1
Configuration details can be found in the Appendix.
Enterprise Strategy Group 4
ESG Lab Review
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Just as stackable switches provide a right-sized and scalable alternative to rack-mounted and chassis
switches in the Ethernet networking market, the expanding line of stackable SANbox switches from
QLogic is bringing pay as you grow flexibility to the storage switching market. Ranging from an entry-level
switch with 8 ports up to the recently announced SANbox 9000, which supports up to 256 ports using an
I/O blade
d architecture, switches can be stacked to accommodate future growth.
QLogic introduced the concept of stackable switches into the storage market. SANbox stackable switches
are connected together using 10 Gbps FC InterSwitch Links (ISLs). SANbox ISLs provide a simply
elegant alternative to the trunking technology of traditional storage switch architectures. Instead of
combining user ports together to create a trunk as needed when interconnecting traditional storage
switches. SANbox switches have built-in dedicated 10 Gbps ports which create a cost-effective highway
for shared traffic between switches.
SANbox switches support availability features like non-disruptive code load support and redundant hot
swappable power supplies. Stackable SANbox solutions have been qualified and are now supported by
major storage and systems vendors.
The SANbox 9000 is the latest addition to the SANbox line of stackable switches. For maximum port
density, the low-profile 4u chassis of the SANbox 9000 supports up to eight 4 Gbps I/O blades for a total
of 128 ports. For maximum performance, the SANbox 9000 can also support up to eight 10 Gbps I/O
blades for a total of 32 ultra-high-bandwidth ports. Blade types can be intermixed within a frame, and two
chassis can be stacked for a maximum of 256 ports. In the future, QLogic will provide additional blades
that can be installed in the SANbox 9000. Storage routing and storage services available today in the
SANbox 6000 and 8000 series platforms will be offered in I/O blade form factors.
ESG Lab Review
As shown in Figure Three, a SANbox 9000 ultra-high density “Designed to the Core” switch was used to
implement a core storage network. The SANbox 9000 at the core was connected to a pair of SANbox
5600s and a SANbox 5200 towards the edge. An entry level ten port SANbox 1400 switch was used by a
simulated workgroup performing video editing.
Figure Three – Distributed Switching – from Core to Edge and Remote
Enterprise Strategy Group 5
ESG Lab Review
Storage residing on a variety of disk arrays was configured and exercised on Windows servers. An NTFS
file system was created using the Windows disk administrator utility and accessed as drive letter F. To
exercise the SANbox 9000 at the core of the network and the SANbox 5000 switches in the distribution
and towards the edge, database traffic was simulated using the industry standard IOMETER utility. The
SANbox 1400 attached workgroup zone at the edge of the network was exercised by viewing a movie
using Windows Media Player. The configuration and zone setup for all of the switches used during this
phase of testing was managed from a single console using QLogic’s Enterprise Fabric Suite Manager
Software as shown in Figure Four.
Figure Four – Single Console Fabric Management
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Shared storage is easier to back up and manage than islands of storage, so storage networking saves
money. QLogic offers the most flexible and cost-effective family of storage switches in the market, so
IT managers who have embraced shared storage can save even more money.
QLogic is the only vendor providing affordable entry-level 8 port switches for use in small businesses,
remote offices and workgroups. For small to medium sized networks, ESG Lab has verified that a
stack of SANbox switches is significantly more affordable than a mesh of traditional storage switches
due to the avoidance of trunking and software costs. The new SANbox 9000 Series solves the
problem that predominantly open systems storage network managers face today — creating a high-
density Core Class network topology exclusively for non-Mainframe environments without paying the
extreme price for a director class switch.
Enterprise Strategy Group 6
ESG Lab Review
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The SANbox 8000 series of hardware platforms works in concert with software from QLogic partners
including Computer Associates, Revivio and StoreAge to deliver intelligent data services running in the
storage network. The SANbox 8000 is a data services engine that can be used to run the following
services over a heterogeneous mix of disk arrays and switches from multiple vendors:
• Online data migration
• Point-in-time copy services and snapshot imaging
• Continuous Data Protection (CDP)
• Remote mirroring (synchronous or asynchronous)
• Storage virtualization
Heterogeneous storage virtualization and on-line data migration can be used together to enable:
• Tiered storage migration, which is often referred to as Information Lifecycle Management (ILM).
• Server and storage consolidation.
Troika Networks was acquired by QLogic for the ASIC technology at the heart of the SANbox 8000. The
SANbox 8000 uses hardware-based acceleration and a non-blocking switch architecture to deliver data
services at hardware-optimized speeds. In comparison to traditional appliance approaches where all data
moves up to the CPU, the SANbox 8000 platform ensures that nearly all data flows are handled at the
hardware level within ASICs.
ESG Lab Review
ESG Lab used the SANbox 8200 and a Storage SMV appliance to perform an online data migration of a
simulated database application, as shown in Figure Five. The SANbox 8200 provided the wire-speed
migration services while the StoreAge software was used for orchestration and monitoring.
Figure Five – SANbox 8202 Enabled Data Services
Enterprise Strategy Group 7
ESG Lab Review
We began with a quick review of the SANbox 8202 configuration, as shown in Figure Six.
Figure Six – The SANbox 8202 Console
Storage Virtualization Manager (SVM) software from StoreAge was used to create and access a pair of
virtual volumes on an IBM disk array – one for the database and another for the database log. The data
and log volumes were placed in a consistency group and were migrated to the Infortrend disk array using
StoreAge multiMirror software. The easy-to-configure migration completed successfully while I/O activity
from a Windows server to the volumes being migrated continued without interruption.
2
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According to end-user research by ESG, running intelligent data service in a heterogeneous storage
network saves time and money. Early adopters reported hardware savings of 23.8%, software savings
of 16.2% and management savings of 19.3%.
2
ESG Research also indicates that the number one
service that users would prefer to have running in the storage network is non-disruptive data migration.
Using a SANbox 8202 as a high speed data services engine working in concert with software from CA,
Revivio or StoreAge, centrally managed data migrations, tiered storage movement, point-in-time
imaging, continuous data protection and remote replication services can be delivered with no
noticeable impact to revenue-generating IT applications and services.
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According to early adopters with large SANs (N=42), ESG Research Report, The Future of Network Based Storage Intelligence,
September, 2004.
Enterprise Strategy Group 8
ESG Lab Review
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QLogic InfiniPath host channel adapters and switches provide a low latency, high bandwidth connection
between servers in a cluster. Compared to the Fibre Channel technology that QLogic is well known for,
these products use Infiniband for server switching instead of storage switching.
Server switching is increasingly being used to deploy applications which previously ran on mainframes
and Unix servers on clusters of commodity servers and server blades. Early adopters of Infiniband server
switching technology in the high performance computing market have already deployed clusters of up to
4,000 server nodes. Server switching technology is also beginning to be used to deploy clustered
databases on commodity servers and server blades. QLogic entered the Infiniband market in 2006 with
InfiniBand silicon and host channel adapter technology via the acquisition of PathScale, and InfiniBand
Edge switches and multi-core Fabric directors via the acquisition of SilverStorm.
ESG Lab Review
Although QLogic claims an industry leading low latency of 1.3 microseconds at the hardware level, ESG
Lab focused its review on higher level application and messaging results which provide a better real-world
indicator of clustered application performance and scalability. A pair of high performance servers
configured in a cluster, as shown in Figure Seven, was observed by ESG Lab.
Figure Seven – A Two Node InfiniPath Enabled Cluster
Hyper Transport adapters were observed exchanging 7.7 million MPI messages per second that were 32
bytes in length, and throughput of 953 MB/sec was observed when passing messages of 4 KB in length or
greater. The MPI benchmark used for this test was derived from a benchmark utility developed by the
Supercomputer Center at Ohio State University.
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Data center managers have begun to deploy new applications on clusters of commodity servers. As
these clusters grow in size and importance, the traditional use of Ethernet for messaging between
clustered servers is becoming a performance bottleneck. Taking a cue from the high performance
computing industry, early adopters are taking advantage of the low latency and high bandwidth of
Infiniband to address this performance problem. Early adopters have also noticed that InfiniBand
technology is surprisingly affordable (especially when compared to emerging 10 Gigabit Ethernet).
ESG Lab has verified that QLogic Infiniband adapters are extremely fast and scalable at the
applications level where it matters most.
Enterprise Strategy Group 9
ESG Lab Review
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The SANbox 6000 series of Intelligent Storage Routers extends the reach of corporate storage networks
beyond the reach of Fibre Channel cabling infrastructure using the industry standard iSCSI and FCIP
protocols. The SANbox 6000 can be used to attach low cost servers to high performance Fibre Channel
storage in the data center. When used to extend the connection over long distances to remote sites, the
SANbox 6000 can be used to replicate data center traffic for disaster avoidance.
ESG Lab Review
A Fibre Channel volume residing on an IBM disk array within the core data center and attached to a
SANbox 9000 ultra-high density core switch was accessed from a simulated remote site during the ESG
Lab review, as shown in Figure Eight. A windows server at the simulated remote site used a QLogic
iSCSI adapter to provide remote access to an NTFS file system accessed as drive letter I. A file system
copy of the program files directory from the C: drive in the remote server to the I: drive in the data center
completed in a matter of minutes. From an end-user’s standpoint, accessing data through an iSCSI
connection to the data center felt exactly the same as working with a local hard drive – only the drive letter
was different.
Figure Eight – SANbox 6140 FC to iSCSI Storage Extension
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There were 16,926 companies in the United States in 2003 with 500 employees or more. Those
employees were located over one million establishments, according to the US Census Bureau. A
quick calculation based on those numbers indicates that companies with 500 employees or more have
more than 60 remote and branch offices on average. Hundreds of thousands of storage networks
have been deployed around the world in the past fifteen years, but the opportunity is for millions of
deployments. Storage routing and entry-level SAN in a box technology from QLogic has the potential
to extend the benefits of storage networking beyond the glass walls of the data center and into branch
and remote offices.
Enterprise Strategy Group 10
ESG Lab Review
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Most IT managers know QLogic as a trusted and market-leading provider of Fibre Channel host bus
adapters. A growing number of IT managers are aware that QLogic now offers a reliable, interoperable
and affordable line of SANbox stackable Fibre Channel switches. Few are aware that QLogic has
recently expanded its storage and server connectivity offerings to include SANbox 9000 “Designed to the
Core” switches, iSCSI host adapters and InfinibBand host channel adapters and switches. Many might
be surprised to learn that QLogic is using this expanded network connectivity layer as a platform for the
delivery of higher level data and network services. For example, the SANbox 8000 platform which
provides data services including online migrations is a powerful new services platform that was recently
announced by QLogic.
ESG Lab believes that network services are exactly what is needed by IT managers who are planning
next generation grid architectures based on service-oriented architectures. A network services
abstraction layer can be used to mask hardware complexity while enabling consolidation, virtualization,
performance optimization, quality of service and security.
Geoffrey Moore, the influential and respected author of
Crossing the Chasm, describes the value and
challenges of adopting a platform provider strategy in his latest tome,
Dealing with Darwin
3
.
Platform innovation provides a layer of abstraction that masks an underlying complexity
of legacy systems. Future offers are thereby freed from having to engage with this
complexity. Instead, they simply interface to the platform and the platform takes care of
all the rest…. The challenge with delivering a platform system is figuring out how to
present the platform to third parties as the center for a new and potentially vibrant
ecosystem. Every market leader in the technology sector is contemplating this
challenge…. The key principles [for success] are to bring two highly valuable assets to
the would-be partner community: access to a market they otherwise would struggle to
reach and access to functional capability they otherwise would struggle to create
.
Noting the key principles for success in Mr. Moore’s quote above, QLogic’s “access to market” strength is
well known in the industry. QLogic’s OEM relationships with storage and systems vendors, and a two-tier
distribution model with value-added resellers and integrators provides a well developed and successful
sales and support model for QLogic’s core host bus adapter and emerging switch businesses. In addition
to this market reach into enterprises, QLogic has invested heavily in the past years in recruiting and
educating channel partners in the small to medium sized business market segments. Taken together,
QLogic provides broad “access to market” for their would-be partner community. And finally, it should be
noted that via a series of recent strategic acquisitions and product announcements QLogic is providing
“access to functional capability they otherwise would struggle to create.” The storage services platform
and InfiniBand intellectual property acquisitions recently made by QLogic are in particular excellent
examples. Both products are targeted at emerging market opportunities that QLogic’s partners and
resellers can use to bring high value network services to end-users shopping for storage network
connectivity from QLogic.
Understanding that there are significant risks and challenges associated with adopting a platform-based
strategy, ESG believes that QLogic is well positioned for success with its expanding product line and
emerging services platform strategy.
3
Dealing with Darwin, Geoffrey Moore, Penguin Books, 2005, pages 93 and 97.
Enterprise Strategy Group 11
ESG Lab Review
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Test Bed Configuration Details
CORE
Servers:
Two HP/Compaq DL360’s P3, 1.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM, W2K3 Server, SP1
SANSurfer 2.0.30
HBA’s:
QLA2460 (FC) F/W: 4.0.0.18, Driver QLogic SCSI miniport 9.1.2.11
Switches:
Three SANbox 5600’s F/W: 5.0.0.31
One SANbox 5200 F/W: 5.0.0.31
One SANbox 9000 F/W: 6.2.0.8
Services Platform:
Two SANbox 8202’s F/W 1.1.7.4
SVM (StoreAge Manager) QStorage SVM version 4.3
iSCSI to FC Router:
SANbox 6140 F/W: 2.0.5, iSCSI router mgr 2.0.30
Storage:
JMR StorBlade
IBM FAST
InforTrend EonStore
EDGE
Server:
Dell GX280 P4, 2.8 GHz, 512 MB RAM,XP Pro, SP2
HBA’s:
QLA4050(iSCSI) F/W: 3.0.0.4, driver 2.1.2.0
QLA200 (FC) F/W: 3.0.3.12, driver 9.0.2.11
Switch:
SANbox 1400 F/W 4.2.0.20
Storage:
FibreDrive 250 GB 7200 RPM SATA
Enterprise Strategy Group 12
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