QLogic 16Gb Enhanced Gen5 FC Single-port HBA

The QLogic Enhanced Generation 5 (Gen 5) 16 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) Single and Dual-port Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) for Lenovo ThinkSystem and System x servers offer industry leading native FC performance with extremely low CPU usage with full hardware offloads.

Enhanced Gen 5 FC technology provides advanced storage networking features capable of supporting the most demanding virtualized and private cloud environments, while fully leveraging the capabilities of high-performance 16 Gb FC (16GFC) and all-flash arrays (AFAs). Powerful management tools automate and simplify SAN provisioning to help reduce cost and complexity, while the unmatched 16 Gbps performance eliminates potential I/O bottlenecks in today’s powerful multiprocessor, multicore servers.

The QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb FC HBAs are shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb FC Single-port and Dual-port HBAs ( shown without the included SFP+ modules )

The QLogic StorFusion architecture delivers ultimate reliability to meet the needs of mission-critical enterprise applications with lower power and fewer CPU cycles, all while maintaining peak performance.

The QLogic Enhanced 16 Gb FC HBAs are based on our 32 Gbps Architecture, which delivers higher IOPS and performance with lower power consumption compared to previous generation.

QLogic QConvergeConsole provides unified, single-pane-of-glass management across generations of QLogic FC adapters.

The following table lists the ordering information for the QLogic Enhanced 16 Gb FC HBAs.

The part numbers for the QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb FC HBAs include the following items:

• An FC HBA adapter with one or two 16 Gb (16/8/4 Gbps speeds) FC SW SFP+ installed
• 3U (standard) and 2U (low-profile) adapter brackets
• Publications package

The following table lists the fiber optic cables that are available from Lenovo.

The QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb FC HBAs have the following features:

• Maximum performance with up to 1.3 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) to support larger server virtualization deployments and scalable cloud initiatives, and performance to match new multicore processors, SSDs/flash storage, and faster server host bus architectures.
• Independent function, transmit and receive buffers, an on-chip CPU, DMA channels, and a firmware image for each port enable complete port-level isolation, prevent errors and firmware crashes from propagating across all ports, and provide predictable and scalable performance across all ports.
• Support for NVMe over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe). The adapters support low-latency access to scale out NVMe with full support for the FC-NVMe protocol. The adapters can simultaneously support FC-NVMe and FCP-SCSI storage traffic on the same physical port, enabling customers to migrate to NVMe at their own pace.
• Supports forward error correction (FEC) to enhance reliability of transmission and thereby performance.
• Industry-standard class-specific control (CS_CTL)-based frame prioritization Quality of Service (QoS) helps alleviate network congestion by prioritizing traffic for time-sensitive mission critical workloads for optimized performance.
• T10-PI data integrity with high performance offload provides end-to-end data corruption protection.
• Support for Message Signaled Interrupts eXtended (MSI-X) improves host utilization and enhances application performance.
• Fabric-assigned port worldwide name (FA-WWN) and fabric-based boot LUN discovery (F-BLD) pre-provisioning services allow servers to be quickly deployed, replaced, and moved across the SAN; the creation of zones, LUNs, and other services can be completed before the servers arrive on site.
• Using the Brocade ClearLink diagnostic port (D_Port) available on the Brocade Gen 5 switches, administrators can quickly run automated diagnostic tests to assess the health of links and fabric components.
• Read diagnostic parameters (RDP) feature provides detailed port, media, and optics diagnostics to easily discover and diagnose link-related errors and degrading conditions on any N_Port-to-F_Port link.
• Link cable beacon (LCB) enables administrators to visually identify both ends of a physical link by flashing HBA's LEDs, simplifying identification of the connection peers within server racks without tracing the cable.
• Single-pane-of-glass management across generations of QLogic FC adapters with QLogic QConvergeConsole (QCC).
• Deployment flexibility and integration with third-party management tools, including the VMware® vCenter™ and Brocade Network Advisor.
• Support for 16 Gb, 8 Gb, and 4 Gb FC devices.
• Comprehensive virtualization capabilities with support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV).
• A common driver model allows a single driver to support all QLogic HBAs on a given OS.
• Reduce the number of cards, cables, and PCIe slots required.
• Exceptional performance per watt and price/performance ratios.
• Backward compatibility with existing 4GFC and 8GFC infrastructure, leveraging existing SAN investments.
• Allow application of SAN best practices, tools, and processes with virtual server deployments.
• Ensure data availability and data integrity.
• Boot from SAN capability reduces the system management costs and increases uptime.

The following table compares features of QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb, Gen 5 16 Gb, and 8 Gb FC HBAs.

The QLogic Enhanced Gen 5 16 Gb FC HBAs have the following specifications:

• Based on the QLogic QLE2690 (single port) and QLE2692 (dual port) adapters
• Host interface: PCIe 3.0 x8
• Ports: Single-port and dual-port SFP+ based adapters
• Link speed: Support for 16 Gb, 8 Gb and 4 Gb FC link speeds, which are automatically negotiated
• Data rate: 14.025 Gbps (1600 MBps), 8.5 Gbps (800 MBps), and 4.25 Gbps (400 MBps) autosensing (per port), with full duplex
• Performance: Up to 1,300,000 IOPS (up to 650,000 IOPS per port)
• Fibre Channel standards: FC-PI-5, FC-GS-2, FC-GS-3, SCSI-FCP, FCP-2, FC-TAPE
• Topology: Point-to-point and switched fabric
• Hot-pluggable 16 Gbps Fibre Channel SFP+ short wave optical transceivers (850 nm) with LC connectors (included with the adapters). Note: Other transceivers are not supported.
• Distance support:
  • Operating at 16 Gbps:
    • Up to 35 m on 50/125 µm OM2 Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)
    • Up to 100 m on 50/125 µm OM3 MMF
    • Up to 125 m on 50/125 µm OM4 MMF
  • Operating at 8 Gbps:
    • Up to 21 m on 62.5/125 µm OM1 MMF
    • Up to 50 m on 50/125 µm OM2 MMF
    • Up to 150 m on 50/125 µm OM3 MMF
    • Up to 190 m on 50/125 µm OM4 MMF
  • Operating at 4 Gbps:
    • Up to 70 m on 62.5/125 µm OM1 MMF
    • Up to 150 m on 50/125 µm OM2 MMF
    • Up to 380 m on 50/125 µm OM3 MMF
    • Up to 400 m on 50/125 µm OM4 MMF
• Management software:
  • The QLogic unified management application, QLogic QConvergeConsole (QCC), provides single-pane-of-glass management across generations of QLogic FC adapters.
  • QLogic supports all major APIs for deployment flexibility and integration with third-party management tools, including the VMware vCenter and Brocade Network Advisor.