QLogic Unveils FabricCache Based on Mt. Rainier

QLogic Corp. released of its FabricCache 10000 Serie adapter.

The first product based on the company’s Mt. Rainier technology, FabricCache combines QLogic’s market-leading FC adapter, intelligent caching and I/O management with connectivity to a server-based PCIe flash card. FabricCache is simple to deploy and manage and transforms single-server, captive cache into a shared, performance-enhancing resource for a range of enterprise applications that rely on SAN storage.
 
Unleashing shared performance for clustered
and virtualized applications in the enterprise
Clustered and highly virtualized servers continue to expand their footprint in the data center, generating numbers of highly randomized IO/s and producing some of the most performance-challenged environments in the enterprise. FabricCache unleashes the power of server-based caching and defines a new solution category for enterprise application acceleration, transparently pooling individual server cache across multiple, physical servers. All servers equipped with FabricCache adapters access, share and utilize the combined cache of all FabricCache adapters in a cluster. This approach delivers new levels of scalable performance for demanding mission-critical applications in the data center, lowering latency and increasing throughput for clustered and virtualized applications, including database and enterprise collaboration.
 
FabricCache adapters enable hypervisor-transparent caching of SAN storage in highly virtualized, clustered environments. During live VM migration between physical servers, FabricCache ensures the shared cache stays warm, keeping performance high and supporting critical features such as automated VM and workload balancing across clustered servers. Since only one active copy of cache exists for any SAN LUN, FabricCache adapters guarantee cache coherence and maximize utilization of server-based flash capacity. FabricCache also ensures all cached data is synchronized with SAN storage, maintaining existing data protection and compliance policies.
 
"QLogic has a rich heritage of delivering innovative, high-performance data center connectivity solutions to our customers and partners," said Simon Biddiscombe, president and CEO, QLogic. "QLogic possesses the unique combination of industry experience, installed base in the enterprise, global customer relationships, technology assets and unmatched R&D talent needed to define and bring to market game-changing, performance-enhancing solutions such as FabricCache."
 
A simpler solution:
transparent, adapter-based caching that lowers TCO
FabricCache is unlike alternative offerings that require separate installation, management and maintenance of server-based software and drivers for the I/O adapter, PCIe flash card and caching. Intelligent cache processing, pooling and clustering are completely offloaded from the server to dedicated cache processing hardware on the FabricCache adapter.
 
It uses just a single standard adapter driver per OS, the same QLogic field-proven adapter driver stack that has shipped with more than 13 million FC ports. The adapter appears logically to the server as a single QLogic HBA, resulting in a simpler solution that consumes no additional server resources and is application-transparent, as well as infrastructure and storage subsystem-agnostic. FabricCache integrates into current enterprise server and infrastructure environments, simplifying deployment and management, thereby reducing TCO.
 
Greater ROI: supercharge performance
for more applications using existing infrastructure
The FabricCache single-driver approach, combined with adapter-based cache processing, eliminates the need to purchase and deploy additional caching software, reducing operational and capital expenditures. It extends server-based caching to more performance-challenged environments in the enterprise, enabling a greater number of mission-critical applications to do more work. Clustered cache eliminates redundant traffic on the SAN, bringing new levels of performance to an existing infrastructure, extending the life of current equipment. As a result, FabricCache changes the economics of server-based caching, delivering higher value with less complexity than currently available performance acceleration offerings.
 
"The FabricCache 10000 Series is just the beginning of new and highly differentiated solutions to come from QLogic’s groundbreaking Mt. Rainier technology," said Shishir Shah, SVP and GM, storage solutions group, QLogic. "We are deeply engaged with several strategic enterprise application partners and major OEMs and look forward to bringing additional breakthrough solutions such as FabricCache to market."
 
Enterprise application performance acceleration for SANs
Compatible with the vast majority of SANs deployed, the dual port 8Gb FC FabricCache QLE10000 adapter comes bundled with an enterprise ultra-low latency, high-performance SLC PCIe flash card.

FabricCache will be available through authorized channel partners by the end of March, 2013.
 
"QLogic’s FabricCache brings a valuable contribution to the problem of where to add flash-cache within a SAN," said David Floyer, CTO and co-founder of Wikibon. "By placing the cache in the fabric, and supporting it with a standard FC HBA driver, the caching becomes transparent to the application host system and storage system. For FC SAN environments this is a simpler and lower cost implementation to install, manage and grow."
 
"Today’s server-based caching solutions are beginning to break down the I/O performance gap between high performance servers and slower, mechanical, disk-based arrays. QLogic’s FabricCache QLE10000 adapter redefines server-based caching with the industry’s first caching SAN adapter that makes SSDs a shared SAN resource," said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of Taneja Group. "Solutions like the QLE10000 adapter will finally enable clustered enterprise applications to take advantage of SSD performance acceleration typically found only in individual servers. QLogic has a great opportunity to grow their market with the potential FabricCache creates."
 
"Virtualization is the default in today’s data center with virtualized workloads eclipsing physical workloads. Nearly 91 million VMs are going to be deployed between now and 2016 and we are also seeing the rise of VDI (VDI), a market which is forecasted to grow at a 14% 5 year CAGR," said Gary Chen, research manager, cloud and virtualization system software at IDC. "I/O performance is the most difficult area for virtualization, especially as you start dealing with high VM densities, tier-1 workloads, and VDI which can create scenarios like boot storms that really pressure I/O subsystems. Solutions that can address these I/O challenges using technologies like shareable server side caching, such as QLogic’s FabricCache QLE10000, are likely to be well received in the industry."
 
"We initially ran the FabricCache QLE10000 adapter through basic connectivity, multi-pathing, and failover tests to see how it behaved in our system. Installation was straightforward, simple, and the FabricCache QLE10000 adapter appeared to our network as just another adapter, seamlessly integrating into our SAN," said Jason Reid, CTO at Carrenza  Limited, an IaaS, and Platform as a Service provider in the UK. "Further performance testing on VMware VMs running SQL clusters showed a 3x performance gain in mixed R/W environments, including significant I/O demand offload to our HP 3PAR array, enabling significant write performance improvements. The FabricCache QLE10000 adapter’s transparent caching enabled uninterrupted recovery to potential failures, with performance enhancements that support the QoS and SLA guarantees our customers demand."
 
"At Constant Contact, we are continually looking for solutions that improve the speed, performance, and reliability of our technology infrastructure. This is critical to serving our more than 500,000 small business customers that in 2012 alone sent more than 45 billion emails to better engage with their donors, prospects, and customers," said Stefan Piesche, CTO of Constant Contact, Inc. "The beta test of Mt. Rainier proved very capable in meeting those needs, providing us with the ability to scale our infrastructure to meet the growing needs of our customer base without sacrificing a seamless user experience. We are looking forward to building upon our partnership with QLogic that has been a win-win for both organizations for more than five years."
 
"FabricCache is a groundbreaking solution that addresses some of the most performance-challenged areas of the data center," said Steve Bishop, CTO at VeriStor Systems, Inc., an inaugural QLogic Advanced Solutions Partner. "With this technology, QLogic is empowering our clients to get more out of their existing infrastructure through a simplified, scalable and high-performance solution for accelerating clustered database applications. In turn, we see additional revenue opportunities from both current customers as well as new prospects looking to take advantage of the latest solid-state caching technologies. It’s a win-win across the board."
 
"QLogic has developed outstanding enablement programs so Advanced Solutions Partners can take full advantage of the opportunities created by a disruptive solution like FabricCache," said Gautam Shah, CEO Colfax International, an inaugural QLogic Advanced Solutions Partner. "By placing enterprise caching in the SAN fabric via QLogic’s FC adapter and standard HBA driver, you get a simple, highly reliable performance accelerator that’s transparent to the application and the SAN. This is a great solution for our customers and generates incremental, long-term revenue opportunities for Colfax."

"SQL Server 2012 gives customers breakthrough performance," said Luis Daniel Soto Maldonado, director, Microsoft Corp.‘s server and tools marketing. "QLogic’s new FabricCache addresses performance at the SAN adapter level to help customers increase SAN caching and storage performance. QLogic couples PCIe flash caching technology with FC adapters and utilizes existing software drivers and management framework. In addition to SQL Server’s enterprise data protection and built-in performance, customers can add the FabricCache QLE10000 caching SAN adapter to increase storage performance."
 
"The new FabricCache QLE10000 caching SAN adapter utilizes QLogic’s proven driver stack and integrated management to Hitachi storage, which makes it easy for our customers to deploy," said Fred Huang, Hitachi Converged Platform CTO. "The seamless integration of the shared cache solution to Hitachi’s mission-critical arrays delivers a flexible level of powerful I/O acceleration/performance to a wide range of applications."
 
"QLogic brings transparent, server-based SAN caching to a shared-resource environment and delivers scalable performance to I/O-hungry applications," said Parag Patel, VP, global strategic alliances, VMware, Inc. "FabricCache QLE10000 caching SAN adapters enable caching of SAN storage in vSphere environments. This enables cache to stay warm during live migration across physical servers, allowing IT experts to build clustered virtualization platforms that scale without compromising performance."
 
"The QLogic FabricCache QLE10000 caching SAN adapter complements NetApp’s server flash strategy by providing application acceleration closest to the application – in the server," said Tim Russell, VP, data lifecycle ecosystem group, NetApp, Inc. "The consolidated SSD and FC adapter solution unleashes the performance of the most demanding applications."