Emulex optimises and scales data centre workloads

 Leveraging high performance I/O connectivity from Emulex, customers can experience virtualisation agility by scaling workloads and optimising application performance of critical applications reducing the time it takes to migrate virtual workloads.

“The next generation of IT requires aligning I/O resources to specific workloads, and solutions that accelerate performance to fit the virtualisation, application, and cloud deployments in today’s data centres,” said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing, Emulex. “The new HP ProLiant Gen9 adapters based on Emulex technology, provide high performance, converged 10Gb and 20Gb Ethernet (10/20GbE) connectivity that increases data centre efficiency across a broad range of I/O intensive workloads, while matching the memory, bandwidth and performance of new HP ProLiant platforms, based on the latest Intel Xeon processor family.”
New HP FlexFabric 556FLR-SFP+ and 650FLB/M Adapters, based on Emulex OneConnect® Converged Network Adapter (CNA) technology deliver the following key benefits for HP ProLiant Gen9 environments:

• Improve Server Utilisation and Scalability: HP FlexFabric 650FLB/M Adapters double Ethernet performance on blades delivering up to 20GbE, providing 2x the bandwidth for 30 percent lower capital expenditure (CAPEX). Emulex vEngine™ storage and overlay network protocol offload support improves CPU utilisation up to 46 percent1, enabling heavier compute workloads and higher scalability with the ability to support more virtual machines (VMs) per server and build faster and more scalable hybrid cloud environments. Emulex vEngine, combined with the doubled core count and faster memory in the new Intel Xeon processors, allows customers to maintain CPU utilisation thresholds and reduce CPU usage fluctuations while adding more workloads to each server. Emulex vEngine can also reduce server electrical power consumption by up to 50 watts1, which lowers the server power costs by up to 20 percent (based on average power consumption of 250 watts per server).
• Optimised Application Performance with Low-Latency Connectivity for Virtualisation: All Emulex adapters are based on a common driver stack and management tools, eliminating complexity and network reconfiguration in virtualised environments, while enabling unified networking through protocol convergence, accelerating time to market and seamless deployment for customers’ next generation data centres. Additionally, Emulex has implemented RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), which can accelerate applications such as Microsoft SQL Server when using Windows Server SMB Direct, delivering application and storage acceleration through faster I/O operations.
• Amplify Performance and Improve Workload Scalability: HP FlexFabric 556FLR-SFP+ and 650FLB/M Adapters deliver up to a 4x boost in small packet network performance, vs. previous generation adapters, which is critical for addressing today’s modern mobility, including transaction-heavy workloads such as telco, Web-scale and messaging applications. HP Virtual Connect modules including HP VC FlexFabric-20/40 F8, HP VC FlexFabric 10/24 and HP VC Flex-10/10D and HP 6125 Series Ethernet Blade Switches support HP FlexFabric 650FLB/M Adapters. Additionally, HP FlexFabric 650 Adapters allow multiple PCI functions in the form of FlexNICs. The solution is founded upon Flex-20 technology, based upon HP’s popular Flex-10 foundation enabling network convergence seamlessly.

“Today’s businesses demand IT agility with compute resources that easily scale workloads and optimise application performance of critical applications,” said Ray Nix, Manager, HP BladeSystem Product Management, HP Servers. “With the new HP ProLiant Gen9 platform, HP and Emulex introduce next generation 10/20GbE networking technology that not only offers next-generation converged storage and overlay networking offload technology but also delivers greater application performance and business outcomes in a mobile-first world.”

The HP StoreFabric SN1100E and HP LPe1605 16GFC HBAs, based on Emulex LightPulse® Gen 5 (16Gb) FC technology, offer more than 1.2 million I/O operations per second (IOPS) on a single port, the highest level of Fibre Channel adapter performance available today, and up to 6x greater IOPS per port than the previous generation, enabling better storage performance for cloud and storage intensive applications. Power efficiency is also improved by delivering up to 4x better IOPS per watt of power as compared to previous generation 8GFC HBAs. Additionally, customers can now optimise application performance and accelerate deployment problem resolution with integrated support for Brocade ClearLink diagnostics technology within Emulex Gen 5 FC HBAs.

Emulex I/O connectivity solutions for new HP ProLiant Gen9 platforms include:
• Modular 10Gb and 20Gb Ethernet (20GbE) LAN on Motherboards (LOMs) (referred to as HP FlexibleLOMs) - HP FlexFabric 20Gb 2-port 650FLB and HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 556 FLR-SFP+ Adapters
• Standup and Mezzanine 10Gb and 20Gb Ethernet Adapters - HP StoreFabric CN1200E 10Gb Converged Network Adapter and HP FlexFabric 20Gb 2-port 650M Mezzanine Adapter
• Standup and Mezzanine 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) - HP StoreFabric SN1100E 16Gb Dual Port FC HBA and HP LPe1605 16GFC Mezzanine HBAs