Copyright 2013© IT Brand Pulse. All rights reserved. Document # INDUSTRY2013002, v2 June 2013 Document # INDUSTRY2013002, v4 October 2013

Where IT perceptions are reality

Most medium and large-sized IT organizations have deployed several generations of virtualized servers, and

they have become more comfortable with the performance and reliability with each deployment. As IT

organizations increased virtual machine (VM) density, they reached the limits of vSphere software, server

memory, CPU, and I/O.

A new VM engine is now available and this document describes how it can help IT organizations maximize

use of their servers running VMware® vSphere® 5.1 (henceforth referred to as vSphere 5.1).

Best Practices in vSphere 5.1……...……………..…………………………………………………...………..…3

Increasing VM Density……...……...………………………………………..…………………………………….4

A New 8 Cylinder VM Engine……….………………………...……………………..……………..…………...5

QLogic I/O = Higher VM Density………………..…………………………………………………..…………….6

A New Virtualization Chassis ……...……….……..…………………………………………………………....7

Turbocharged Fuel Injection……………………………………………………………………….……….….....8

Network I/O Planning…...………………...……………………………………….………………...……………..9

Accelerating App Performance ……………………….………………………..……………………..….….10

Faster Storage vMotion…………………………………………………………………………………………….11

Storage Protocol Flexibility…….……………………...………………………..………………………..………12

Low-Latency Connectivity……………………………………………………………………………….….....…13

Doubled I/O Throughput..………………………………………………………………………………………..14

Higher Efficiency………………………………………………………….…………………………………………..15

Linear Scalability ……………………...……………………………………………………………….…………...16

I/O Dashboard and Control...….……………………………………………………………………………....17

Resources..……….………………….……………………..……………………………………………….……………18

Harnessing the Power

In a survey conducted by IT Brand, IT professionals said the

average number of VMs per server would almost double in the

next 24 months.

VMs Per Server

Best Practices in vSphere 5.1

No hardware resource is more important to overall performance

than memory. Plan to ensure each VM has the memory it needs,

but without wasting memory in the process.

Memory

Start with Planning

When planning a VMware installation, it is important to take into account the new capabilities of vSphere

5.1. VMware has added significantly to the scalability of vSphere 5.1. For data centers virtualizing Tier-1

applications, the significant scalability enhancement is the ability to have up to 1TB of memory and 64 virtual

CPU cores (vCPU) per VM. This will ensure that almost all Tier-1 applications should perform well in a

vSphere 5.1 environment.

However, these new capabilities bring new complexities, and with them the need to plan new data center

architectures. This not only includes planning the deployment for today’s needs, but also thoroughly

investigating evolution strategies for applications before bolting down racks and filling them with servers.

Planning which applications are going to run on your virtualized servers is the first step in understanding your

needs. From there, it is critical to define server integration points with existing resources (likely core

switching and storage resources), and how these will be affected by the evolution of existing resources. After

that, planning your approach to vMotion® and capacity growth over the lifetime of your new infrastructure

will help you scope internal I/O requirements

appropriately.

Finally, determining whether to utilize

converged networks or not, and what I/O

performance you need, will enable you to

intelligently discuss your I/O and networking

options with your SAN/LAN equipment

providers. These steps will help you ensure

success when virtualizing your Tier-1

applications.

To fully optimize virtualized data centers,

servers need maximum I/O capacity to support high input/output operation rates and high bandwidth

applications. Increased bandwidth is also needed for server virtualization, which aggregates I/O from multiple

virtual machines (VMs) to the host’s data path. This next-generation combination takes full advantage of new

features that are described in detail in this planning guide. Read on to discover how QLogic can increase your

infrastructure ROI and overall competitiveness.

The Great VM Proliferation

With many server admins working on their 3rd and

4th generation of virtualized servers, the focus has

changed from interoperability and learning the

behavior of vSphere 5.1, to increasing VM density

(#VMs/Physical Host Server). With the availability of

servers based on Intel’s E5 processors (multi-core,

768GB of RAM, PCI Express® Gen3), a new, game-

changing compute platform was introduced. This

new platform allows for new levels of VM density

and for the first time Tier-1 applications that

previously required dedicated server hardware can

now run on virtual servers, achieving improved

performance, scalability and efficiency.

While vSphere 5.1 and multi-core processor based

servers are seeing significant deployments in many

enterprise datacenters, the I/O and network

infrastructure to support these new technologies

lags far behind. In a survey conducted by IT Brand

Pulse, IT professionals said the average number of

VMs per server would almost double in the next 24

months. Approximately 25 percent of IT

professionals surveyed also said what they need

most to increase the VM density is more I/O

bandwidth.

The purpose of this industry brief is to provide a

planning guide to help enterprises deploy Tier-1

applications with adequate bandwidth in a dense

vSphere 5.1 virtualization environment.

Increasing VM Density

Approximately 25 percent of IT professionals surveyed said

what they need most to increase the density of VMs per server

is more I/O bandwidth—QLogic’s core competence.

VM Density

IT Brand Pulse

The average number of VMs per server in

my environment:

What I need most to increase the density of

VMs per physical servers is more:

IT Brand Pulse

A New 8 Cylinder VM Engine

Two more cores, 8MB more cache, six more DIMMs of faster DDR3-

1600 memory increasing to 768GB, double the I/O bandwidth with

PCIe 3.0, and more Intel QuickPath links between processors.

Xeon E5

Xeon® E5 offers double the I/O bandwidth to 10GbE NICs, 10GbE FCoE, and 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel Converged

Network Adapters, and Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters.

The Intel Xeon E5 Platform

The introduction of the Intel® Xeon® E5 family of processors responds to the call for more virtual server

resources with two more cores, 8MB more cache, and six more DIMMs of faster DDR3-1600 memory,

increasing the total to eight cores, 768GB of RAM, and doubling the I/O bandwidth with PCIe® 3.0.

Intel’s new Xeon E5 promises a significant increase in server I/O by enabling full-bandwidth, four-port 10GbE

server adapters as well as dual-port Gen 5 Fibre Channel server adapter support, addressing the VM density

issue with a substantial increase in I/O bandwidth that host servers require.

Intel Xeon E5 Platform

2X More VMs Per Server with vSphere 5.1, Xeon E5, and QLogic Server Adapters

Any concern about hosting Tier-1 apps on VMs has been elevated with vSphere 5.1, Intel E5 processors, and

next-generation I/O throughput of the QLogic multiprotocol server adapters. Even flagship enterprise

applications such as SAP, which typically require dozens of development, QA/test, and production servers,

have adopted server virtualization within these environments as a best practice. The CPU, memory, storage,

and networking I/O requirements are well documented by application vendors and VMware. If one of your

goals is to increase VM density, the same combination allows for double the number of VMs per server while

enjoying the same level of individual application performance.

Generational Differences in Performance Using VMware VMmark 2.5

Using the VMware VMmark 2.5 virtualization

benchmark, VMware compared the performance of

four-node clusters consisting of servers with four-

core Intel Nehalem processors versus servers with

eight-core Intel EP processors. The new cluster

scored 120 percent higher than the old cluster. The

performance advantages were largely due to the

generational improvements of the eight-core E5-

2665 processor versus the four-core x3460

processor, improved bus speeds, increased

memory, and the resulting increase in I/O

throughput.

Having doubled the throughput rates with the

QLogic QLE2672 Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus

Adapter, the vSphere 5.1 platform can also support

more storage devices and meet bandwidth

requirements. Now, using the same number of

Fibre Channel links as before can support double

the bandwidth, benefitting virtualized applications.

QLogic I/O = Higher VM Density

Performance Differences in Intel

Generation Using VMware VMmark 2.5

Business-critical applications such as ERP, CRM, eCommerce,

and e-mail need high-performance and high-availability I/O

infrastructure to meet business SLAs.

Tier-1 Apps

(Source: VMware Blog)

VMware vSphere 5.1

The newest release of vSphere represents a high-performance VM chassis capable of harnessing the power

of a new CPU engine and drives requirements for an expanded I/O interface. The new I/O capabilities of

QLogic server adapters combined with vSphere 5.1 complement enhancements related to Storage vMotion.

Storage vMotion—vSphere 5.1 enables users to combine vMotion and Storage vMotion into one operation. The

combined migration copies both the VM memory and its disk over the network to the destination host. In larger

environments, this bandwidth-intensive operation enables

VMs and datastores to be migrated between clusters that do

not have a common set of datastores.

Parallel Disk Copies—vSphere 5.1 allows up to four parallel

disk copies per Storage vMotion operation, where previous

versions of vSphere used to copy disks serially. When you

migrate a VM with five VMDK files, Storage vMotion copies

the first four in parallel, then starts the next disk copy as

soon as one of the first four finishes.

Gen 5 Fibre Channel—To help complete the storage

vMotion as soon as possible, vSphere 5.1 includes support

for Gen 5 Fibre Channel. In vSphere 5.0, VMware introduced

support for Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters, but

they had to be throttled down to work at 8Gb. Now,

vSphere 5.1 supports these Host Bus Adapters running

at Gen 5.

10GbE and SR-IOV—For applications which require low-latency performance, SR-IOV-capable 10GbE server

adapters offer the benefits of direct I/O, which reduce latency and host CPU utilization.

From a storage planning perspective, when comparing vSphere 5.1 to previous versions, there are two

specifications which stand out: the amount of memory/VM (1TB) and the amount of active VMs per machine

(1,024).

With today’s storage usage, a petabyte of storage could be needed to support 1,024 VMs. While this

scenario is unlikely for at least a few years, running 100 VMs with 512GB of virtual memory each on a single

server (which would require 52TB of storage for the memory content alone) is very foreseeable.

A New Virtualization Chassis

In vSphere 5.1, support for Gen 5 Fibre Channel Adapters

helps ensure adequate I/O to maximize VM densities and

quickly complete vMotion and Storage vMotion migrations.

Gen 5 Fibre Channel

Executing Storage vMotions is now easier than ever, increasing

the need for high-performance 10GbE or Gen 5 Fibre Channel

storage networks.

vMotion and Storage vMotion

QLogic Server Adapters

vSphere 5.1 and Xeon E5 processors streamline the procedure of moving VMs and their associated storage

with vMotion and Storage vMotion and support low-latency networking traffic with SR-IOV. Moving terabytes

of data across VMs and the migration of virtual servers requires low-latency, high-performance I/O adapters.

QLogic offers a family of server adapters for Gen 5 Fibre Channel, 10GbE, or converged network connectivity,

providing the bandwidth for increased VM scalability and to power Tier-1 application workloads.

Turbocharged Fuel Injection

The latest generation of Converged Network Adapters from QLogic

support Ethernet LANs, NAS, iSCSI SANs, and FCoE SANs, as well as native

Fibre Channel SANs.

CNA

QLogic Server Adapters

2600 Series

3200 Series

8300 Series

Server Adapter

Description Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter

Intelligent Ethernet Adapter

Converged Network Adapter

Speed 16Gbps 10Gbps 10Gbps

Protocols Fibre Channel TCP/IP LAN and NAS, iSCSI SAN

TCP/IP LAN and NAS, iSCSI SAN, and FCoE SAN

Use in Virtualized Server

Highest performance Fibre Channel SAN

connectivity for storage- intensive applications

Consolidate multiple 1GbE server connections to LAN and NAS on one

high-speed Ethernet wire

Consolidate server connections to LAN and

SAN on one Ethernet wire

Picking the Right I/O Pieces, and Making Them Work Together

Tier-1 applications are uniquely demanding in many dimensions. Their needs with respect to CPU power,

memory footprint, high availability/failover, resiliency, and responsiveness to outside stimuli is typically

unmatched within the enterprise. Moreover, Tier-1 applications also tend to be tightly integrated with other

applications and resources within the enterprise. Because of this, virtualizing a Tier-1 application requires

rigorous planning of the I/O strategy. There are five steps to follow:

Identify the I/O fabrics that the Tier-1 applications will use (it may very well be “all of them”).

Quantify the data flows for each fabric when the application was operating on a standalone system.

Estimate vMotion I/O needs for failovers and evolution. Note that most vMotion traffic will be storage

I/O; if the data stays within one external array during vMotion, vSphere’ vStorage API for Array

Integration (VAAI) capability can reduce the I/O traffic.

Determine your primary and secondary I/O paths for multi-pathing on all of your networks.

Determine QoS levels for the Tier-1 apps.

One simplifying option available is to utilize a multi-protocol network adapter that can function as either a

Fibre Channel or Converged Network Adapter. The QLogic QLE2672 is an example of such an adapter; it can

be reconfigured in the field to operate on 4/8 or Gen 5 Fibre Channel or 10Gb converged Ethernet networks.

Network I/O Planning

Networking Considerations When Virtualizing Tier-1 Applications

Pre-planning deployments is the most effective way to ensure that

SLAs will be achieved, and expensive surprises will be avoided. Planning

Accelerate VM Data with QLogic FabricCache™

10000 Series Adapters

The QLogic FabricCache™ 10000 Series Adapter is the industry's first caching SAN adapter.

This new class of server-based PCIe flash/Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters uses the Fibre

Channel network to cache and share SAN metadata. Adding large caches to servers places

the cache closest to the application and in a position where it is insensitive to congestion.

An advantage to this approach is that PCIe flash‐based caching can be shared across multiple physical

machines. FabricCache features a shared-cache architecture that satisfies the cache coherence requirement

for clustered application environments and eliminates the cache hot/cold issue with multi-server virtualized

infrastructures supporting live VM migrations and automated workload balancing capabilities, ensuring a

consistent user experience throughout the VM migration process.

10000 Series FabricCache Adapters FabricCache Adapters Provide Links to Fibre Channel Array and Cache Hot VM Data in Server

Accelerating App Performance

A QLogic architecture for sharing and replicating cache on a

Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter in a SAN. FabricCache

Only one caching Host Bus Adapter in the accelerator cluster is ever actively caching each LUN’s traffic. All other members of the

accelerator cluster process all I/O requests for each LUN through that LUN’s cache owner, so all storage accelerator cluster

members work on the same copy of data. Cache coherence is guaranteed without the complexity and overhead of coordinating

multiple copies of the same data.

Shared PCIe SSD

Gen 5 Fibre Channel Improves Storage VMotion I/O Throughput

A process known as Storage vMotion allows for a non-disruptive migration of running VM disk files between

two different physical storage devices. This process allows for the VM to remain running with no need to take

its workload offline to move the VM’s files to a different physical storage device. Additional use cases for

storage vMotion include migration of data to new storage arrays or larger capacity, better performing LUNs.

NPIV zoning and LUN masking must be properly configured to ensure the VM and the host server continue to

have access to the storage after the migration is completed. Storage vMotion across a Gen 5 Fibre Channel

link can finish in half the time it takes with a 8Gb Fibre Channel link.

From vSphere 5.1 onwards, up to four parallel disk copies run simultaneously, making it imperative that all

paths related to Storage vMotion should be supported by high-performance Gen 5 Fibre Channel networks

in order to reduce the time it takes to evacuate storage safely to a new destination and resume normal

operations. Additionally, 10GbE links can replace 1GbE links to ensure adequate bandwidth for Storage

vMotion in Ethernet environments.

Faster Storage vMotion

A single-port QLE2670 Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter can double throughput for Storage vMotion.

Storage vMotion at Gen 5

This bandwidth-intensive operation enables live migration of

virtual disk files from one storage device to another storage

device on the same host.

Storage vMotion

QLE2670 Gen 5

Fibre Channel HBAs

QLE3240 10GbE

Intelligent Ethernet

Adapters

QLogic 8300 Series Converged Network Adapters Enable Convergence at the

VM Edge

QLogic Converged Network Adapter solutions leverage core technologies and expertise, including the most

established and proven driver stack in the industry. These adapters are designed for next-generation,

virtualized, and unified data centers with powerful multiprocessor, multicore servers. Optimized to handle

large numbers of VMs and VM-aware network services with support for concurrent NIC, FCoE, and iSCSI

traffic.

One QLogic 8300 Series Converged Network Adapter can be configured for connectivity to an Ethernet

network and to deliver storage networking via Fibre Channel over Ethernet simultaneously. Key features and

benefits include:

Powerful iSCSI and FCoE hardware offloads improve system performance

Advanced virtualization technologies supported through secure SR-IOV or through switch- and OS-

agnostic NIC Partitioning (NPAR)

Combined with QLogic’s Quality of Service (QoS) technology, delivers consistent and guaranteed,

application aware performance in dense VM environments.

Storage Protocol Flexibility

The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol allows Fibre Channel

traffic to run over a converged Ethernet network for LAN and SAN traffic

over one wire.

FCoE

For organizations maintaining a parallel LAN and SAN architecture all the way to the server adapter, QLogic offers the QLE8300

Series of adapters supporting 10GbE LAN, NAS and iSCSI SAN traffic, as well as Fibre Channel over Ethernet traffic.

Network Convergence at the Host Server Adapter and Fabric Convergence Adapter Convergence, Separate Fabrics

Both ports used for LAN, NAS

and SAN traffic over Ethernet

Ethernet ToR Switch Ethernet ToR Switch FCoE ToR Switch

1 port used as FCoE CNA

1 port used as Ethernet NIC

QLogic 8300 Series Converged Network Adapters Offload the VM Kernel from

Switching Virtual NICs

Single Root I/O Virtualization is a standard that allows one PCI Express (PCIe) adapter to be presented as

multiple separate logical devices to VMs for partitioning adapter bandwidth. The hypervisor manages the

Physical Function (PF) while the Virtual Functions (VFs) are exposed to the VMs. In the hypervisor, SR-IOV-

capable network devices offer the benefits of direct I/O, which includes reduced latency and reduced host

CPU utilization.

With SR-IOV, pass-through functionality can be provided from a single adapter to multiple VMs through VFs.

To deploy SR-IOV today, an organization needs to ensure a minimum level of infrastructure (server hardware

and OS) support for SR-IOV.

Low-Latency Connectivity

Latency is the time between the start and completion of one action

measured in microseconds (µs). Latency

With SR-IOV-enabled on a 10GbE NIC, pass-through functionality can be provided from a single adapter to

multiple VMs through VFs.

Implementing Pass-Through Functions with SR-IOV

8300 Series

Converged

Network

Adapters

In Transaction-Intensive and Bandwidth-Intensive Environments

With the availability of Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters, larger block I/Os have doubled their

throughput compared to 8Gb per second bandwidth. Together with better CPU efficiency per I/O,

throughput for random I/Os for small block sizes have increased because their throughput is no longer

bounded by the Fibre Channel link speed of 8Gbps as before.

For virtualized environments, the ability of the adapter to scale with workload is the most critical measure of

performance. Testing by QLogic shows the advantage of the QLogic QLE2672 as workloads increase for both

read-only and read-write workloads. This performance advantage (50 percent for read-only and 25 percent

for mixed read-write) has a significant impact on application performance, which is critical to meeting SLAs

for Tier-1 applications.

Having doubled the throughput rates with the newly available QLogic Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus

Adapters, the vSphere 5.1 platform can support more storage devices and meet bandwidth requirements

using the same number of Fibre Channel links. The doubled bandwidth for large block transfers can benefit

applications like VMware vSphere Storage vMotion. The improvement in random read IOPS at a 4KB block

size, for example, can benefit database application clients. Applications are no longer limited by the existing

8Gb Fibre Channel bandwidth to meet their peak performance requirements.

Doubled I/O Throughput

Throughput The amount of data processed or transferred in a given

amount of time measured in megabytes per second (MBps).

“Throughput” and “Bandwidth” are used interchangeably.

IOPS and MBps Performance as Workloads Increase

In testing by QLogic, the QLE2672 out-performed the Emulex LPe16002B in terms of IOPS and MBps performance.

Higher Efficiency

FlexSuite Adapters feature QLogic I/OFlex technology, a field-

configurable upgrade to use the same hardware for Gen 5 Fibre

Channel or 10GbE server connectivity.

FlexSuite

In Transaction-Intensive and Bandwidth-Intensive Environments

For virtualized environments, the most critical measure of performance is the ability to scale as the number

of VMs and application workloads increase. In testing conducted by QLogic, the QLE2672 FlexSuite Gen 5

Fibre Channel Adapter delivered:

3X the transactions and 2X the bandwidth of 8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters.

The QLE2672 also demonstrated a 50 percent advantage over competitive products for read-only

performance and 25 percent better mixed read-write performance.

This superior performance of QLogic Gen 5 Fibre Channel Adapters translates to support for both higher VM

density and more demanding Tier-1 applications.

QLogic achieves superior performance by leveraging the advanced Gen 5 Fibre Channel and PCIe Gen3

specifications—while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing Fibre Channel networks. The unique

port-isolation architecture of the QLogic FlexSuite Adapters ensures data integrity, security, and deterministic

scalable performance to drive storage traffic at line rate across all ports.

Furthermore, QoS enables IT administrators to control and prioritize traffic.

10GbE Intelligent Networking Eliminates I/O Bottlenecks

QLogic’s 10GbE intelligent Ethernet architecture, combined with new virtualization software features, allow

multiple and flexible receive queues, such as NetQueue, and significantly reduces the delays inherent in

current virtualization implementations by:

• Eliminating some of the hypervisor overhead. This frees up processor resources to support heavier weight

applications on the VMs or to run more VMs per server.

• Eliminating the queuing bottleneck in today’s software-based approach. The current approach creates a

single first-in, first-out queue for incoming packets from the Ethernet adapter through the hypervisor to the

various VMs. Because neither the hypervisor nor the Ethernet adapter knows which packet goes to which

interface, there is substantial packet processing performed in the hypervisor to determine which packet goes

where. It is a processor-intensive task that consumes a great deal of time and CPU cycles.

Linear Scalability

The improvement factor for RAM memory per VM for vSphere 5.1—

addressing the biggest issue in scaling VMs. 8X

More Virtual CPUs for Scaling Tier-1 Apps with vSphere 5

If you’re concerned about hosting tier-1 apps on VMs, the argument about virtualizing tier-1 apps is over.

Even flagship enterprise applications such as SAP, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012, and Exchange 2010 have

adopted server virtualization as a best practice. As an example, the CPU, memory, storage, and networking

requirements are well documented by SAP.

More VMs with vSphere, Xeon E5, and QLogic Server Adapters

Fabric-based networks are a fundamental requirement in supporting highly virtualized data centers. Fibre

Channel SANs are the nucleus of the next-generation vSphere 5.1 data center. If your goal is to increase VM

density, vSphere 5.1 combined with the latest generation of servers and QLogic server adapters allow you to

more than double the number of VMs per server while enjoying the same level of performance.

vSphere 5.1 will enable your businesses to leverage the built-in architecture of both products to increase

availability, improve agility, and overcome scalability and performance concerns.

vSphere 5.1 delivers improvements on all key virtualization metrics—making I/O performance critical.

vSphere Version vSphere 4 vSphere 5.1 Factor

Host

HW Logical Processors 64 160 LPs 5x

Physical Memory 1TB 4TB 4x

Virtual CPUs per Host 512 2048 4x

VM

Virtual CPUs per VM 8 64 8x

Memory per VM 255GB 2TB 8x

Active VMs per Host 320 512 1.7x

Cluster Max Nodes 32 32 1x

Max VMs 1280 4,000 3x

I/O Dashboard and Control

vCenter Server plug-ins extend the capabilities of vCenter Server by

providing more features and functionality. Some plug-ins are

installed as part of the base vCenter Server product.

vCenter Plug-ins

QConvergeConsole Plug-In for Single Pane Adapter Management

Installation and management of high-performance server adapters can be complicated if it’s not integrated

with vSphere. The QLogic QConvergeConsole plug-in for vCenter is available with vCenter Server—providing

an intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard view of all QLogic adapters.

The result is that VM server administrators are armed with the power of QLogic adapter management

software and 100 percent compatibility with vSphere.

Powerful QLogic QConvergeConsole adapter management software is accessible in-box with the vCenter plug-in.

Related Links

What’s New in vSphere 5 Performance

What’s New in vSphere 5 Networking

What’s New in vSphere 5 Storage

What’s New in vSphere 5.1 Networking

What’s New in vSphere 5.1 Storage

VMware vSphere 5.1 Configuration Maximum

QLogic Fibre Channel Adapters

QLogic Converged Network Adapters

Acceleration for Microsoft SQL Servers

About the Authors

Rahul Shah, Director, IT Brand Pulse Labs

Rahul Shah has more than 20 years of experience in senior engineering and product

management positions with semiconductor, storage networking, and IP networking

manufacturers, including QLogic and Lantronix. At IT Brand Pulse, Rahul is responsible for

managing the delivery of technical services ranging from hands-on testing to product launch collateral. You

can contact Rahul at rahul.shah@itbrandpulse.com.

Tim Lustig, Director of Corporate Marketing, QLogic Corporation

With more than 18 years of experience in the storage networking industry, Tim has authored

numerous papers and articles on all aspects of IT storage, and has been a featured speaker at

many industry conferences on a global basis. As the Director of Corporate Marketing at

QLogic, Tim is responsible for corporate communications, third-party testing/validation,

outbound marketing activities, and strategic product marketing directives of QLogic. His

responsibilities include customer research, evaluation of market conditions, press and media relations, social

media, and technical writing.

Resources