Intelligent I/O Matters: Connecting Shared Storage - iSCSI or Fibre Channel?

hello and welcome to this edition of intelligent IO matters from Chiu logic a caveum company my name is Todd Owens and I'm the HP e om field marketing manager here at Q lodging in this video I want to talk about a hot topic in the storage world the protocol Wars I scuzzy or fiber channel which protocol is best for your customer well as a vendor who supplies technology for both I believe I'd rent a pretty unbiased view so let's get started so which is the best protocol when I go out and talk to the HP field HPE partners and customers here's what I hear I scuzzy is only for entry or SMB customers or fiber channels faster or how about I scuzzy is a low-cost and easy to deploy and finally fiber channel sans are complex and difficult to deploy manage and diagnose well what's the real answer to be honest none of these is exactly true the answer is it depends and it depends on what's most important to your customer so let's take a few minutes here and explore this in a little bit more detail when talking to customers about shared storage connectivity there are several factors that need to be considered and are listed here there's no one-size-fits-all answer no matter what the manufacturers tell you when it comes to I scuzzy versus fiber channel eats transport has different capabilities when it comes to things like bandwidth transactional performance or latency and the same is true from a cost manageability diagnostics perspective as well the real question is how does your customer prioritize each of these issues that's where you need to start let's start by comparing the technical attributes based on data sheets for 10 gig Ethernet I scuzzy to Gen 5 16 gig fibre channel HBAs as these are the most common connectivity options for today's modern IT environment for bandwidth 16 is bigger than 10 so fibre channel has a clear advantage here for transactional performance you might be surprised to see I scuzzy with higher I ops rating than fibre channel from a latency perspective fibre channel is the clear choice and for efficiency both use the same encoding scheme so this is a tie in terms of resiliency and error correction fibre channel has a few more capabilities like forward error correction and t10 protection information or teat NPI although forward error correction is being implemented in higher performing 25 gig Ethernet solutions down the road from a management perspective both have multiple options but fibre channel has a few more capabilities in their management schemes and then finally from a cost per porch perspective there's a pretty big range for Ethernet with fibre channel right smack in the middle so what's the right answer I scuzzy or fibre channel and I think we need to dig a little bit deeper before we draw any conclusions let's compare the transactional performance the top graph here shows the IOM's performance for a cue logic fifty seven eight 10s controller running I scuzzy offload now this is the same controller that's used in the HPE 530 series flexible network adapters and the scene 1100 RC and AAS the bottom chart is the IEEE ops curve for QLogic 22 660 series adapters which are equivalent to the HPE s and 1000 cubic HPA from geologic as published in the datasheet the I scuzzy adapter can achieve 1.5 million ions but this is achieved at a 512 byte block size the same can be said for the fibre channel HPA as it achieves its published spec of 1.2 million I ops at the same 512 byte block sides but what block size is your customers application running at 4k 8k or more when you really look at the data what you see is eat the ions performance vice Guzzi is best when the block sizes are below 2k fibre channel is a choice for AI ops performance when block size is above 2g so the lesson here is don't go by what's just published on the datasheet now let's talk about deployment and cost I hear all the time that I scuzzy Z low-cost solution because people rationalize that can connect storage they can simply add an I scuzzy VLAN to their existing production network that sounds like a good idea but is it I really call this poor man's I scuzzy why well that's because there's no real redundancy built into this approach and it's difficult to control the quality of service in terms of bandwidth to the storage resources and depending on the workload the storage traffic could potentially overwhelm the CPU the network adapter and other network resources the proper way to connect I scuzzy to shared storage is using dedicated adapters with I scuzzy offload like converged network adapters and also on a dedicated storage network with two paths for high availability this ensures full bandwidth control and quality of service for the storage traffic minimizes you CPU utilization and leaves the processor resources available for running applications or deploying more virtual machines in virtual environments another bonus is that it frees up the Ethernet port on the production network to implement a teaming approach so that you have a high availability there as well now let's look at deploying a fibre channel sand for a moment this looks a lot like the I scuzzy sand right and the only thing we change really is the HB a and switch technology we replace the 10 gig CA with a 16 gig fiber channel HB a and we replaced the 10 gig Ethernet switch with us gen 516 gig fibre channel switch so when you look at the sand architecture the right way to do both I scuzzy and fibre channel is exactly the same all this rolls up into a cost comparison and I break this down on this chart here in terms of cost purport there's no question that I scuzzy with 10g bastey is the lowest cost option but nothing's for free when you implement 10g bastey there's a penalty you pay in terms of latency that's an order of magnitude higher than I scuzzy using sfp+ with fibre channel optic cables direct-attached copper connectivity with I scuzzy or or DAC is a good low cost option but there's limitation here too and it's the cable length but direct-attached copper cabling is typically only supported up to about seven meters in length surprisingly I scuzzy with SFP+ optics and fiber cable is the highest cost per port at almost $3,500 per port that's because the 10 gig sfp+ optics are very expensive even when compared to 16 gig fiber channel objects in the middle of the cost curve is 16 gig fiber channel options at just about $2,600 per port so where does I scuzzy make sense well first I scuzzy on an Ethernet connection is the only option when you're dealing with both block and file storage connectivity if cost is a number-one priority over everything else then I scuzzy with 10g based E is the absolute best option and if customers are using small block sizes and transactional performance is important I scuzzy is a great choice or if connecting to network attached storage or hyper-converged appliances I scuzzy is the protocol of choice whereas fiber channel the best fit well when performance is the overall priority I scuzzy simply can't compare to fiber channel when considering all the performance factors including bandwidth I ops and latency and if high availability is a requirement fiber channel is a best choice because the high resiliency features like for dare correction and t10 P I as well as much more robust monitoring and diagnostic capability for fiber channel sand management in software like brocade network advisor there's just nothing like that on the Ethernet side to manage storage traffic if connecting flash storage fiber channel is the only real choice why well combination of latency and I ops performance characteristics of 16 gig fiber channel are very well-suited to allow flash storage to run at optimal performance and finally fiber channel is the best choice for applications like video backup or disaster recovery as these tend to use large block sizes in excess of 128 kilobytes and need the available bandwidth that fiber channel offers so to summarize here's my best practice recommendations using flash go with 16 gig gen 5 fibre channel connecting to Nass or hyper-converged appliances now I scuzzy the answer there if you're concerned about manageability diagnostics and performance then lead with fibre channel and if cost is the absolute number one priority I scuzzy with 10g based T connection is by far the lowest cost option so as I said in the beginning which is the best protocol well it just depends you know I'll leave it at this if performance and reliability matter then lead with fibre channel if cost is the ultimate driver then I scuzzy is a good choice the key is have a conversation with your client and make sure that you understand their requirements before making any kind of protocol recommendation for more information on what cue logic and HPE are doing check out our HPE microsite at wwe.com I emphasize HPE here you're going to find lots of really cool information product guides tech briefs and all kinds of good around to logic and HP technology if you're interested in training we have a dedicated HP training website at HP EQ logic training net here you'll find HP dedicated training and certification options also check out more of our videos on YouTube on the Q logic TV channel and follow us on Twitter and join the conversation on LinkedIn with our - logic and HPE community out there well that's it for this session of intelligent Iowa matters I hope you found the information useful I want to thank you for your time and attention if you have any questions please reach out to us via email Twitter or LinkedIn and have yourself a wonderful rest of your day

Channel: QLogic TV

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Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2016