Emulex HBA product

evaluation

Emulex provides network convergence solution that

connect server, storage of the network within the data

center. It includes the fibre channel host bus adapter,

converged network adapter and embedded storage

switches. Products sold by OEM partners like Cisco,

Dell, Hitachi data system, HP, IBM etc. It’s products are

Host Bus Adapter, Network Adapter, Control drivers,

iSCSI adapter,

Introduction

Emulex is situated Costa mesa california, it is founded

in the 1979 and now employs over 900 people in the

worldwide. We evaluate some points of fibre channel

host bus adapter with other HBA’s. We includes some

points like customer availability, model varity, operation

environment support, installation support, multi pathing

support, HBA management and support.

Evaluation summary

Our general finding that HBA product family is more

rich of features and wider breadth of support for server

hardware, operating syatem and path management.

Overall the installation process HBA is very much easier

for emulex. This management software is very much

efficient in the use if large environment. Current emulex

product family is mature, robust and well suited for

large to small fibre channel.

Customer Availability

A common consideration is the availability to the

customer. Customer can obtain through varity of sales

channel. It is bundle with either server vendor or

storage vendor. It is also widely available in many retail

channel.

Model variety

Server that use that use fibre channel HBA, have a

variety of bus types. These are PCI, PCI-X 1.0, PCI-X

2.0, PCI Express and Sbus. In the factor required

tower and rack server the blade server often have

their own special factor that requires some

specialized HBA. It offer wide variety of bus type.

HBA has two model 410 and 420 these work with a

PCI express x4 or x8. The new emulex light pulse

HBA support 4Gbps.

Operating environment

support

Fiber channel HBA are deployed in a number of

operating environment and a wide section of certified

solution are required. It requires drivers for the

operating system and it support software application

graphical user interface (GUI) and command line

versions.

Multipathing Support

Multipathing is arranged in many fibre channel storage

environment in order to give more than between server and

storage. It allows failover in the event by balancing across multiple

path. HBA is a part of comlete multipathing solution and has a

certified to work in various multipahing system. Like micrisoft

MIPO is certified for various HBA. It requires additional technology

for to complete multipathing solution. Today it is certified to work

in all major multipathing solutions like storage and file system.

Installation of HBA

Emulex provides a single package Autopilot Installer

that install HBA driver and management software. User

can install in just a two minutes and it does not required

reboots. Administrator in a large environment with

many server emulex approach is simpler and easier.

HBA management

Clicking on the left side of manu

structure. Each product shows

several tab function with daily

and periodic functions. It allow

firmware update to anywhere. In

the visible fabric it can use that

firmware. For the firmware update

no reboots is required. Event log

is uaeful in managing of large

environment. HBA’s are

performed through backup,

restore. Firmware BIOS and

Fcode can be updated for one or

more adapters. There is no

reboots. No event log entries are

noted.

HBA performance graph

Vendor makes various

performance claims. A series

of iometer test ware spanning

wide renge of block size

specially for reading and

writing. HP server is

connected to texas memory

system through 4100 fibre

channel switch. Here we

include the MBPS graph.

Reliability and support

Emulex has a proven customer care center with great

deal of experience. In the quaterly finance report JAN 24

2008 emulex claimed they host more than five million

servers. They currently claims that more than ten

million hours of field mean between failures. Examples

are Emulex 8GB HBA , Emulex LPe11002 HBA.

Contact Us 188-M Technology Drive

Irvine CA 92618

Tel: (949) 788-9939

Fax: (949) 788-9940

http://www.shopricom.com

To know about Emulex 8GB HBA you can visit

http://www.shopricom.com/46M6140