W H I T E P a P E r

8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter of Choice in MS-Exchange EnvironmentQLogic 8Gb Adapter Outperforms

Brocade® Out-of-BoxQLogic IOPS and Throughput Performance Superior

to Brocade in MS Exchange Environments

Executive Summary

It is imperative to deploy a scalable architecture to meet the ever-growing requirements of Storage area Networks (SaNs). With increased demands on the Microsoft® Exchange Server, it is critical to optimize Exchange I/O performance in the SaN. The QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb Fibre Channel (FC) Host Bus adapter (HBa) meets the need for high performance, measured as throughput (MBps) for large data volumes and data requests (IOPS). QLogic’s unique adapter and aSIC architecture is capable of delivering high performance at power levels unprecedented in the industry.

E-mail has grown to be one of the most important communication and collaboration applications for world wide businesses. according to a report from the The radicati Group1, Microsoft Exchange Server will have a total installed base of 187 million mailboxes in 2008 for both in-sourced and hosted Exchange. The amount of mailboxes is expected to grow to a total of 285 million by 2012, an annual growth rate of 11 percent.

1 The radicati Group, Inc.’s latest study, Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook Analysis, 2008–2012

To help IT decision makers make the best, most informed adapter choice, QLogic has performed a series of head-to-head performance benchmarks showing the out-of-box I/O performance and scalability advantages of the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter over the Brocade 8Gb 815 adapter. QLogic compared the overall performance of the 8Gb adapters, in a replicable and unconstrained test environment, to emulate real-world Microsoft Exchange workloads.

Key FindingsQLogic has compared the out-of-box performance of its 8Gb FC adapter to Brocade’s, using the test setup described in this paper. This setup represents an unconstrained environment with no inherent performance limitations due to deficiencies in the host or the fabric; it has been used extensively by QLogic over the last several product families to benchmark the performance of its FC adapter relative to its competitors. QLogic’s test results demonstrate that:

The QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter offers better •throughput and IOPS compared to the Brocade 8Gb 815 adapter, and in turn supports the additional demand of MS Exchange e-mail volume and increased workloads.

Driving Microsoft Exchange-like I/O loads in an attempt •to saturate the adapters showed up to 207 percent better

8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter of Choice in MS-Exchange Environment QLogic 8Gb Adapter Outperforms Brocade® Out-of-Box

HSG-WP08011 SN0230974-00 a 2

W H I T E P a P E r

IOPS and 39 percent better throughput for the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapters versus the Brocade 8Gb 815 adapter.

The Brocade 815 single-port adapter fails to keep up with •increasing Exchange Workloads. at 32 outstanding I/Os; the QLogic 8Gb adapter scaled up to 207 percent better in IOPS and 39 percent better throughput than the Brocade 8Gb adapter.

Test Setup

The IOmeter tool was used to benchmark the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter versus the Brocade 8Gb 815 adapter in an exchange environment with minimum subsystem latency.

The IOmeter test setup (Figure 1) consisted of the latest 8Gb adapters from QLogic and Brocade, running on current commercially available drivers, installed in a Intel® Stoakley Quad Core (dual socket) server capable of over 550K IOPS, running the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. The Intel Stoakley server was connected to a Texas Memory System ramSan®-400 (with 32GB total capacity) through a QLogic SaNbox® 5802V Series 8Gb switch. Using a solid state disk allows removing the latency introduced by a slower disk-driver, and provides the performance benchmark expected from next-generation storage arrays.

One initiator and four target ramSan ports were configured in a zone to the 8Gb SaNbox 5802V. Eight ww LUNs were created on the ramSan: four for the database and four for logs.

Figure 1. IOmeter Test Setup

When the disk latency is reduced (the disk I/O is striped across an increased number of spindles), a greater I/O load (the number of users is increased) can be driven by Microsoft Exchange. Using the ramSan-400 and the IOmeter load generation tool allowed the emulation of both these conditions, as illustrated in Figure 1.

The tests were performed using the latest commercially available hardware, software, and drivers. all measurements were made with default settings of the adapters from both companies.

Test Procedure

The tests were executed on the configuration described in Figure 1 as follows:

a QLogic 8Gb single-channel PCI Express to Fibre Channel adapter 1. (QLE2560) was installed on the test server using the appropriate miniport driver.

Workers were created separately for 4k read/write and 64k write 2. operations (two workers for 4k reads, one worker for 4k writes, and one worker for 64k writes). Eight LUNs were created and mapped to four target ports.

Tests were run for one minute on this setup.3.

These steps were repeated for the Brocade 8Gb single-channel 4. PCI Express to Fibre Channel adapter (815).

Test results

The tests demonstrate that, as the number of users increased and more LUNs were provisioned, the QLogic 8Gb FC adapter showed a multifold improvement over the Brocade 8Gb FC adapter in scalability.

IOmeter found that the IOPS performance of QLogic FC adapter was 207 percent better than Brocade’s FC adapter (Figure 2).

Similarly, the QLogic adapter’s throughput was 39 percent better than Brocade’s FC adapter (Figure 3).

8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter of Choice in MS-Exchange Environment QLogic 8Gb Adapter Outperforms Brocade® Out-of-Box

HSG-WP08011 SN0230974-00 a 3

W H I T E P a P E r

Figure 2. IOPS Performance

Figure 3. Throughput Performance

Figure 4 outlines the six tests performed to access scalability in MS Exchange environments. Each test included an increase to the I/O workload; test 1 had a workload of 1 outstanding I/O, with increase through test 6, which had 32 outstanding I/Os.

Figure 4. Exchange Workload Scalability

as shown in the chart, tests 3, 4, 5, and 6 show that the QLogic 8Gb adapter maintained the IOPS performance. In tests 2 and 3, the Brocade adapter also maintained its maximum performance. In contrast, the Brocade adapter’s performance dropped significantly. Overall, in tests 4, 5, and 6 (at 8, 16, and 32 I/Os respectively), QLogic displayed a performance advantage of approximately 207 percent over the Brocade 8Gb adapter.

Summary and Conclusion

QLogic continues to be the industry leader in delivering high-performance I/O solutions to data center customers. The IOPS and throughput of the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter is best in class and provides an unprecedented level of high performance, superior scalability, and enhanced reliability that exceeds the requirements for next generation data centers. The results of the benchmark tests shown in this paper demonstrate the I/O performance and scalability advantages of the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter over the Brocade 8Gb FC 815 adapter.

a high performance and scalable FC adapter such as the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapter will handle the load efficiently without degrading the overall performance of the Microsoft Exchange Server. Storage trends demand higher utilization of bandwidth and throughput from FC adapters, and the QLogic 2500 Series 8Gb FC adapters deliver on this promise.

8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter of Choice in MS-Exchange Environment QLogic 8Gb Adapter Outperforms Brocade® Out-of-Box

HSG-WP08011 SN0230974-00 a 4

W H I T E P a P E r

appendix a

Server Configuration

Intel Server

Processor type and speed

Intel Stoakley Quad Processor (dual socket) — total 8 cores

Memory 4GB raM

OS type Windows 2003 Enterprise Server SP2

Version 5.x.xx.xx Service Pack 2

FC adapter Hardware

FC adapters

QLogic QLE2560

Brocade 815

FC adapter Configuration

QLogic and Brocade FC adapters

QLogic driver STOr miniport

QLogic driver version 9.1.7.16

Brocade driver STOr miniport

Brocade driver version 1.0.0

External Storage Configuration

Storage

Solid state disk ramSan-400 solid state storage

LUNs 8 LUNs, 4 target ports

FC Switch Hardware

Switch

8Gb switch SaNbox 5802V

8Gb Fibre Channel Adapter of Choice in MS-Exchange Environment QLogic 8Gb Adapter Outperforms Brocade® Out-of-Box

W H I T E P a P E r

Corporate Headquarters QLogic Corporation 26650 aliso Viejo Parkway aliso Viejo, Ca 92656 949.389.6000 www.qlogic.com

Europe Headquarters QLogic (UK) LTD. Quatro House Lyon Way, Frimley Camberley Surrey, GU16 7Er UK +44 (0) 1276 804 670

© 2008 QLogic Corporation. Specifications are subject to change without notice. all rights reserved worldwide. QLogic, the QLogic logo, and SaNbox are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation. Brocade is a registered trademark of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. Microsoft and Windows Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. ramSan is a registered trademark of Texas Memory Systems, Inc. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. HP is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. Sun is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. aMD is a registered trademark of advanced Micro Devices, Inc. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. Xen-Source is a trademark of XenSource, Inc. all other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 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.

HSG-WP08011 SN0230974-00 a 5

Disclaimerreasonable efforts have been made to ensure the validity and accuracy of these performance tests. QLogic Corporation is not liable for any error in this published white paper or the results thereof. Variation in results may be a result of change in configuration or in the environment. QLogic specifically disclaims any warranty, expressed or implied, relating to the test results and their accuracy, analysis, completeness or quality.