* The QL8100 family of CNAs is a study in simplicity
Rarely does a product or technology make as much simple sense as does QLogic’s recent announcement of the QLogic 8100 Series Converged Network Adapters (CNA).
The QL8100 family of CNAs is a study in simplicity. The family includes an array of single- and dual-ported PCI-Express-based adapters that converge storage and IP networks into a combined fabric that supports Fibre Channel, 10Gbit Ethernet and iSCSI transport protocols, as well as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) offload processing, and runs at 10Gbps line speeds. QLogic’s converged network adapters are available in several configurations, including mezzanine-card implementations specifically targeted at the blade server and OEM markets, where they have been in qualification since the fourth quarter of 2008.
What is important about this announcement though is that the QL8100 Series and the QLE8152 CNA are the introduction of the industry’s first adapters that use a single-chip application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) rather than discrete components. QLogic’s first-generation CNAs used four discrete chips from Nuova Systems, Intel, QLogic and PLX. All these capabilities – Fibre Channel, 10Gbit Ethernet and PCIe – are now combined in QLogic’s Network Plus Architecture on a single chip.
The advantages of ASIC design in the QL8100 are borne out primarily in the increased performance, lower power dissipation and the smaller footprint it offers. Other vendors’ first-generation implementations of FCoE presently rely on discrete components and perform at only as much as 150,000 IOPs per second. The new QLE8152, for instance, performs at as much as 250,000 IOPs per port, an increase of 65% over first generation CNAs.
In terms of the power savings, the new QLE8152 has a power dissipation of seven watts, 60% more efficient than that of competing products, which operate at 22 watts.
The other advantage of the ASIC design, the small footprint – replacing spread out discrete components and circuitry – which leaves space on the adapter for future purposes such as encryption or applications used in crowded, blade server or high density storage environments.
QLogic has looked at ASIC design and called on its six years of experience with iSCSI to design an ASIC that supports FCoE and Enhanced Ethernet, as well as FCoE offload – and does it reliably in a lossless manner.
