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Huawei Technologies, Co.Ltd Competitive Test of Huawei Lossless Ethernet Solution for Hyper-converged Data Center Networks Centralized Storage: Huawei Ethernet-based NoF+ vs. Fibre Channel HPC: Huawei Lossless Ethernet vs. InﬁniBand Document number: 221138 Release Date: 25 Sep 2021 Traditional data centers may be built on multiple fabrics – Ethernet for server interconnection, Fibre channel for storage networks, and InfiniBand for high performance compute clusters. With new development of Ethernet, such as lossless Ethernet technologies, high performance Ethernet NICs supporting RDMA and MPI, NVMe over RoCE all-flash storage systems, Ethernet-based data center network solutions started to replace Fibre Channel and InfiniBand solutions to provide equivalent or better performance. Furthermore, Ethernet solutions are typically more cost effective. They are supported by more vendors. And 400G Ethernet switches are widely available on market now while current Fibre Channel switches typically only support up to 64G FC ports. For all these reasons, modern data centers are moving from the multi-protocol mode towards converged all-Ethernet. Based on the considerations above, Huawei launched the hyper-converged data center networks CloudFabric 3.0 solution. It consists of two components: Huawei CloudEngine data center switches, and Huawei iMaster NCE-Fabric, an intelligent network management and control system. Huawei commissioned Tolly to evaluate Huawei’s lossless Ethernet data center network solution, and compare it with Fibre Channel in storage area network test cases and with InfiniBand in high performance computing scenarios. Storage
Dell Technologies Dell EMC CloudIQ for PowerEdge Server Infrastructure Insights Document number: 221129 Release Date: 22 Sep 2021 Managing datacenters can be very challenging. The rise of the internet of things (IoT) has driven growth in distributed edge computing and many system admins support systems from remote locations or home on a regular basis. Real intelligence is needed to manage systems effectively. With these needs in mind, Dell Technologies several years ago introduced Dell EMC CloudIQ, a cloud-native application that combines machine intelligence and human intelligence, provides IT administrators with a single-pane-of-glass view of their storage systems globally. Dell EMC CloudIQ has now been extended to include Dell EMC PowerEdge Server systems. Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to validate the “Time to Value” and “Time to Insight” of CloudIQ in conjunction with managing Dell PowerEdge servers. Tolly found a rapid time to value of under 30 minutes and time to insight that is 3X faster for an average Dell EMC customer. Storage
Broadcom Inc. Lenovo ThinkSystem Emulex LPe36002 Host Bus Adapter 64G Fibre Channel Performance vs. 32G and 16G HBA Modes Document number: 221134 Release Date: 24 Aug 2021 Data storage and retrieval is growing at an extraordinary pace. Analysts note that data grew world-wide by 4x in recent years and that database data warehousing will double in the next five years. Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can dramatically increase data retrieval rates. Next-generation Fibre Channel alone and in conjunction with next-generation PCIe 4.0 technology can provide dramatic improvements in application data throughput. Lenovo’s ThinkSystem Emulex Gen 7 LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel (64G) dual-port host bus adapter (HBA) leverages both 64G and PCIe 4.0. Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of the new adapter in terms of raw performance and compared to existing 32G Fibre Channel (32G) HBAs. The adapter demonstrated dual-port performance in excess of 11 million IOPS. Running relational database transaction benchmarks, the adapter effectively doubled performance by dramatically cutting run times. Similarly, the adapter leveraged PCIe 4.0 technology increasing application throughput to ~12,000MBPS compared to ~6,600MBPS maximum achieved on PCIe 3.0 servers. Storage
Broadcom Inc. Emulex® LPe36002 Host Bus Adapter, 64G Fibre Channel HBA Performance vs. 32G Document number: 221123 Release Date: 11 May 2021 Data storage and retrieval is growing at an extraordinary pace. Analysts note that data grew world-wide by 4x in recent years and that database data warehousing will double in the next five years. Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can dramatically increase data retrieval rates. Next-generation Fibre Channel alone and in conjunction with next-generation PCIe 4.0 technology can provide dramatic improvements in application data throughput. Broadcom’s Emulex Gen 7 LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel (64G) dual- port host bus adapter (HBA) leverages both 64G and PCIe 4.0. Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its new adapter in terms of raw performance and compared to existing 32G Fibre Channel (32G) HBAs. The adapter demonstrated dual-port performance in excess of 11 million IOPS. Running relational database transaction benchmarks, the adapter effectively doubled performance by dramatically cutting run times. Similarly, the adapter leveraged PCIe 4.0 technology increasing application throughput to ~12,000MBPS compared to ~6,600MBPS maximum achieved on PCIe 3.0 servers. Storage
Dell Technologies Infographic: Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server Document number: 221119 Release Date: 08 Mar 2021 Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to study the specifications and characteristics of its Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 and provide analysis and context as to where the device sits in terms of advancing the industry. View the Infographic on the key takeaways from the Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 analysis. The full Tolly report can be downloaded from here. Storage
Dell Technologies Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server Scalability, Eﬃciency & Flexibility Analysis Document number: 221109 Release Date: 04 Feb 2021 Nothing seems to grow faster than the need for storage. Few in the world of IT would argue otherwise. With IoT, image, and video objects feeding “big data” analytics systems, that growth curve can be steep as new systems are placed online. Dell Technologies has engineered its latest storage server with a focus on high-density, high-capacity storage customers. Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to study the specifications and characteristics of its Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 and provide analysis and context as to where the device sits in terms of advancing the industry. Tolly found that the Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server provides significant scalability and efficiency benefits both compared to prior generation systems and compared to current generation systems of a leading competitor. Significantly, the unit provides module server sled options that allow for high-performance optimization for specific application focus areas such storage/archival, intelligent video analysis (IVA), and media streaming. Storage
Broadcom Inc. Emulex® Gen 7 LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter NVMe over Fibre Channel vs. SCSI Performance Document number: 220122 Release Date: 01 May 2020 Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load. Fibre Channel leads the industry as the first transport with complete NVMe over Fabrics ecosystem support. Every major server vendor is shipping NVMe standard and offers Emulex NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) capable Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC HBAs running NVMe/FC against the performance of the same adapters running in SCSI mode. The series of tests included database TPC-C-like tests using Microsoft SQL Server 2019 and Oracle Database 19c running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8). The Emulex LPe35002 HBA running in NVMe/FC mode demonstrated superior performance in both test scenarios. Storage
Broadcom Inc. Emulex® Gen 7 LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter NVMe over Fibre Channel vs. SCSI Performance in VMware ESXi 7 Environments Document number: 220117 Release Date: 01 May 2020 Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load. Fibre Channel leads the industry as the first transport with complete NVMe over Fabrics ecosystem support. Every major server vendor is shipping NVMe standard and offers Emulex NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) capable Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC HBAs running NVMe/FC against the performance of the same adapters running in SCSI mode. The series of tests included database TPC-C-like tests using Microsoft SQL Server 2017 and Oracle Database 19c running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8). The Emulex LPe35002 HBA running in NVMe/FC mode demonstrated superior performance in both test scenarios. Storage
Broadcom Inc. Emulex® LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter 32G Fibre Channel HBA Performance vs. Marvell QLogic QLE2772 Document number: 220114 Release Date: 24 Apr 2020 Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load. Additionally Gen 7 Fibre Channel maintains backward compatibility with existing Fibre Channel infrastructure to ensure streamlined performance upgrades. Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC host bus adapter (HBA) against the performance of Marvell’s QLogic QLE2772 32GFC HBA (branded as “enhanced 32GFC”), running database applications and synthetic benchmarks. Both products are second generation, dual- port, 32GFC HBAs. The series of enterprise datacenter-oriented tests performed included synthetic IO, latency, bandwidth, and database TPC-C-like tests. The Emulex LPe35002 HBA demonstrated superior performance across all test scenarios including up to 5x higher IOPS, as much as 1/2 the latency, and approximately 20% more transactions per minute (TPM) for Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database OLTP workloads. Storage
Dell Technologies Webinar - Future Proof Your VMware Cloud Foundation Infrastructure for Uncertain Times Document number: 220119 Release Date: 16 Apr 2020 Requirements for change on an IT Infrastructure are at an all time high. Unprecedented demand for work from home means further strain on often already strapped server infrastructure. In this session we actively discuss how customers have been coping with these critical business demands and how to, not only deliver mission critical applications with changing requirements on IT, but also plan for future changes. We will also discuss how VMWare Cloud Foundation 4.0 validated design on PowerEdge MX delivers cloud infrastructure that is built for unique innovation. View the on-demand webcast with Kevin Tolly, Founder at The Tolly Group presenting the study results along with Seamus Jones, Technical Marketing and Roger Foreman, Software Product Marketing at Dell Technologies by clicking on the link below which will take you to the Dell webcast landing page. Dell Webcast View On-demand Landing Page. The Tolly report can be downloaded from here. Storage
Dell Technologies Tolly Proven PowerEdge MX Reference Architecture for VMware Cloud Foundation and Deployment Best Practices Document number: 220102 Release Date: 06 Apr 2020 Large data centers are by nature complex. Deploying and managing data centers consisting of hundreds of compute and storage resources and likely thousands of virtual machines (VM) is no simple task, however. What you need for hybrid cloud is a single integrated solution that is easy to deploy and operate through built-in automated lifecycle management. What you need is VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware Cloud Foundation is the capstone to the VMware product suite that delivers the data center of today and of the future. Cloud Foundation was born to run on Dell Technologies PowerEdge MX7000 modular, software-defined server infrastructure which, importantly, is a VMware Validated Design (VVD). The PowerEdge MX7000 is a chassis with its eight slots for compute and/or storage resources (sleds) meshes perfectly with VMware’s recommended cluster size of four hosts. Our intent is to describe in a realistic fashion how much infrastructure (hardware), time, and capital investment is required to get it off the ground and expand it down the road. VVD is a set of stringent design criteria established by VMware for SDDC. In this project, we will build out a production-ready Cloud Foundation built on the Dell PowerEdge MX Modular Server Infrastructure. Our initial system will be built in a single chassis and provide a fully functional management cluster of four hosts running VMware SDDC Manager (Software-defined data center) along with all related VMware features and functions needed to deploy and manage a sophisticated hybrid cloud data center. Then, we will outline the steps and changes required to grow from our single chassis to a multi-chassis deployment where two or more chassis build upon the initial Cloud Foundation installation. In fact, this solution is easily expandable to up to 10 PowerEdge MX chassis within the same low latency, inter-chassis, scalable network fabric. The Tolly Group worked closely with Dell Technologies to document a “Tolly Proven” reference architecture/solution for leveraging Dell PowerEdge MX for private cloud deployment. The conceptual guidance provided in this document works hand- in-hand with Dell’s step-by-step cookbook on the topic: “Dell EMC VMware Cloud Foundation for PowerEdge MX700 - Deployment Guide” (Cloud Foundation Cookbook for short). Storage
Dell Technologies Webinar - Dell iDRAC9 v4.0 Telemetry Streaming Document number: 220109 Release Date: 21 Feb 2020 The datacenter of the future will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive predictive & proactive management of the server infrastructure. In turn, AI systems rely on ingesting massive amounts of granular data. iDRAC9’s Telemetry Streaming, available with the new iDRAC9 Datacenter license, is architected to provide highly granular, high-value data using resource-efficient data streaming. View the on-demand webcast with Kevin Tolly, Founder at The Tolly Group presenting the study results along with Rick Hall, Systems Management Product Planning and Strategy, Doug Iler, iDRAC Product Manager and Michael Brown, Distinguished Engineer at Dell Technologies by clicking on the link below which will take you to the Dell webcast landing page. Dell iDRAC9 v4.0 Webcast View On-demand Landing Page. The Tolly report can be downloaded from here. (Note: There is no download for this webcast item.) Storage
Dell Technologies iDRAC9 Telemetry Streaming Evaluation of The Performance and Efficiency of Telemetry Streaming in the New iDRAC9 v4.0 Release Document number: 220101 Release Date: 18 Feb 2020 The datacenter of the future will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive predictive & proactive management of the server infrastructure. In turn, AI systems rely on ingesting massive amounts of granular data. iDRAC9’s Telemetry Streaming, available with the new iDRAC9 Datacenter license, is architected to provide highly granular, high-value data using resource-efficient data streaming. Dell EMC commissioned Tolly to benchmark the number of data points collected from a representative PowerEdge server via iDRAC9 v4.00.00.00 in a 24-hour period and compare that to a prior, less data-rich monitoring implementation. Additionally, data collection via polling and streaming were compared for network efficiency. Tolly found that iDRAC9 Telemetry Streaming running on a representative test system produced over 2.9M data points in a 24-hour period compared with 6,240 data points for a typical polled server using the existing Redfish interfaces and a reasonable real-world polling interval of 30 minutes. With Telemetry Streaming each 24-hour report can be collected via a single HTTP request compared with a per-report best case of 17,280 HTTP requests to collect a single report daily. Storage
NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 25GbE Ethernet Adapter Adapter Performance vs Broadcom NetXtreme E Document number: 219130 Release Date: 07 Oct 2019 Data center computing environments for Cloud, Edge Computing and Hyper- converged infrastructures (HCI) demand high performance throughput, 25GbE or higher server connectivity, scalability and resilience. NVIDIA® Mellanox® commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its ConnectX®-5 25GbE network adapter against the performance of Broadcom’s NetXtreme® E 25GbE network adapter in cloud and storage computing environments. The series of datacenter-oriented tests used included RoCE fabric, FIO, DPDK RFC 2544 and DPDK CPU throughput. The ConnectX-5 25GbE adapter demonstrated higher throughput, better scale and lower resource utilization across the set of test scenarios. . Storage
Broadcom Inc. Broadcom NetXtreme® 25GbE Adapter Ethernet Adapter Impact on vSAN Performance: Competitive Comparison Document number: 219123 Release Date: 04 Jun 2019 Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines virtualization, computer servers, the storage network and storage to provide a simplified architecture that offers both agility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). HCI implementations such as VMware vSphere/vSAN can be optimized and deliver higher performance using 25GbE networking. Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the vSAN storage networking performance of the Broadcom NetXtreme 25Gb Ethernet Adapter in a VMware hyperconverged environment and compare those results to similar Ethernet adapters from Intel, Marvell and Mellanox. The Broadcom NetXtreme adapter outperformed the competing solutions in both IOPS and data throughput in all scenarios of 16KB blocks and higher. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Proof of Concept - HPE Synergy Composable Infrastructure Document number: 217120 Release Date: 23 Aug 2017 All hyperbole aside, “Composable Infrastructure” offers an approach to server provisioning that is a radical departure from prior solutions - and with radical benefits. HPE Synergy helps customers reduce complexity, deploy more rapidly and bring cloud-like speed to the corporate datacenter. HPE commissioned Tolly to run common Proof of Concept (POC) test scenarios that would be applicable to most infrastructure customers. Tolly engineers worked through nearly 20 different scenarios across four key areas: infrastructure, stateless boot/streaming, storage provisioning, and network fabric configuration. The goal in each of these scenarios was to validate important capabilities of HPE Synergy. Storage
Load DynamiX, Inc. Podcast: Flash Storage Benchmarking with Load DynamiX Document number: 215143 Release Date: 13 Jul 2015 Flash Storage is increasingly important in Enterprise and cloud computing, while still relatively expensive, it can provide significant performance benefits. To be certain that the flash-based array is delivering up to its specifications, one needs to benchmark it. Load DynamiX is a leader in the storage benchmarking space and in this podcast Tolly Group Founder Kevin Tolly discusses this important topic with Len Rosenthal, VP of Marketing, Load DynamiX. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP StoreEasy Storage: System Deployment, Ease-of-Use and Management Evaluation Document number: 214129 Release Date: 15 Sep 2014 From the smallest branch office to the largest enterprise environment, storage is always an important consideration. Nowadays with audio files and video files becoming commonplace elements of business, storage demands reach terabyte levels even with a small number of users. HP believes that, across the board, businesses need efficient file storage that is both easy-to-manage and scalable. HP commissioned Tolly to evaluate the HP StoreEasy Storage family of devices which consists of the HP StoreEasy 1000 Storage file appliances to provide simple file storage and the HP StoreEasy 3000 Gateway Storage file gateways to provide scalable connectivity to back-end storage area network (SAN) environments. Specifically, Tolly focused on initial deployment, ease-of-use and management of both systems. Storage
Fusion-io, Inc. Webcast: Fusion-io Hybrid Storage - The Proof is in the Performance Document number: 214109 Release Date: 01 Feb 2014 LIVE DATE: January 23,2014 Speaker: John Tolly, Director of Engineering, Tolly Webcast Summary: Listen to John Tolly from Tolly Group as he discusses their independent testing results comparing the performance of two different hybrid storage systems – Fusion ioControl Hybrid Storage using PCIe flash and a conventional hybrid architecture using NVRAM plus SSDs. You’ll learn how and where the performance of these two hybrid architectures differ and what it means to your application environment. Hear John describe the test environment and the results, including comparisons of VM density, handling VDI boot storms, IOPS, latency, and various read/write workloads. Register now to understand the type of results you can achieve with hybrid storage systems. The webinar will feature live Q&A after the presentation. View the on-demand Webcast by clicking the link below: View Webcast Storage
Fusion-io, Inc. Fusion ioControl n5 Hybrid Storage Architecture Performance Comparison versus Conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk Architecture Document number: 213154 Release Date: 15 Oct 2013 Conventional hybrid storage solutions use NVRAM (non-volatile RAM/flash) to cache data before writing to disk, then augment performance with an SSD read cache. While such solutions generally offer acceptable performance for small datasets, they are ultimately limited by the configuration and number of SSDs that can be deployed. In contrast, a hybrid storage approach can leverage PCIe based flash to provide better performance. This not only provides direct (non-SATA/SAS) access to block-level storage and fast read/write caching, but also allows for greater disk capacity per array shelf. Fusion-io commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance of its ioControl Hybrid storage approach against a similarly-equipped conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk hybrid solution. Tolly found the Fusion-io solution to offer high performance and scalability. In block level access tests, Fusion-io provided up to 7X better performance than the conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk solution under test. Storage
Overland Storage Overland Storage SnapScale X2 Network Attached Storage Performance and Scalability Evaluation Document number: 213140 Release Date: 27 Sep 2013 Traditional scale-up Network Attached Storage (NAS) architecture uses a single head unit to control and protect a number of disk arrays. Although popular, this approach introduces a single point of failure and potentially creates bottlenecks as additional capacity is added. Scale-out architectures, on the other hand, leverage multiple head units (nodes) that work together to protect data, and can expand easily to spread processing power and bandwidth to maximize performance and redundancy. Overland Storage commissioned Tolly to evaluate the scalability and performance of their new SnapScale X2 clustered NAS solution. Tolly evaluated the SnapScale X2 platform in sequential and random read/write test scenarios. Tolly validated that the SnapScale X2 can scale to 50 nodes seamlessly, with no disruption. Adding nodes increased the capacity and also improved cluster-wide performance as additional nodes were added to the cluster. Storage
Quantum Corporation Quantum vmPRO Data Protection Solution for VMware An Evaluation of Ease-of-Implementation, Functionality, and Interoperability in VMware vSphere 5 Environments Document number: 212100 Release Date: 02 Feb 2012 With virtualization’s ever-increasing adoption by small and medium size businesses (SMBs), and remote or branch offices (ROBOs), IT administrators face a major overhaul of the critical infrastructure that supports the expanding virtual environment. In the data protection arena, while the environment will shift, the goal remains the same: to provide backup and restore capabilities to every server instance both as a whole, and as a file structure for individual recovery. The task then becomes choosing and implementing data protection for virtualized environments while maintaining interoperability and manageability with existing disaster recovery deployments. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP X5000 G2 Network Storage System System Ease-of-Use, High-Availability, Performance, and Interoperability Evaluation Document number: 211130 Release Date: 06 Dec 2011 Today’s small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) have ever-growing needs with respect to storage. Not only do SMBs often need many terabytes of storage, they require a level of high-availability (HA) typically associated with large-scale, enterprise deployments. Furthermore, given IT staffing constraints, storage solutions should be easily installed and managed by existing IT staff. Tests show that a 2-node, HP X5520 G2 9.6TB LFF 15K Network Storage System (hereafter X5000 G2) could be installed “out-of-the-box” to a fully-functional, HA system joined to a Microsoft domain in less than 90 minutes. The HP-supplied Initial Configuration Tasks tool guides the user through each deployment stage, eliminating a great deal of manual configuration. Storage
Quest Software, Inc. Quest vRanger Pro 5.2  Performance and Ease-of-Use Evaluation in VMware ESXi 4.1u1 Environments Document number: 211134 Release Date: 05 Dec 2011 Small and medium size business (SMB) networks are facing increasing demands for data protection in their virtualized environments. As server consolidation continues, SMBs are unlikely to adhere to the level of redundancy sought by enterprise class datacenters. However, planning for the unexpected provides for a quick recovery in the event of an outage. All SMBs can benefit from a flexible platform which can provide the desired backup, recovery, and replication features, while effortlessly integrating with their specific environment. A solution which can be implemented as a virtual or physical machine, on the LAN or SAN is preferable where storage may not be centralized, or additional servers may be hard to come by. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP StorageWorks X3820 2-node Network Storage System: High-Availability Storage for SMB System Evaluation Document number: 210122 Release Date: 10 Jun 2010 Today’s small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) have ever-growing needs with respect to storage. Not only do SMBs need to be able to scale to many terabytes of storage, they require a level of high-availability typically associated with large-scale, enterprise deployments. Furthermore, given IT staffing constraints, they need such storage solutions to be able to be installed quickly by existing IT staff. HP commissioned Tolly to evaluate the ease-of-installation, high-availability, performance and system support of the HP StorageWorks X3820 2-node Netwok Storage System in the context of SMB deployment. Storage
Symantec Corporation Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 & Symantec Veritas NetBackup 6.5.3: VMware Environment Data Protection Performance Versus EMC NetWorker 7.5 Document number: 209118 Release Date: 17 May 2009 Symantec Corporation commissioned Tolly to evaluate the data protection performance of Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 & Symantec Veritas NetBackup 6.5.3 and compare them with EMC NetWorker 7.5 in a VMware environment. Testing evaluated backup performance and recovery performance for the full VMware ESX virtual machines as well as individual files residing within a given virtual machine. Download the free test report. Storage
Hitachi Data Systems HDS High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series with 10GbE, powered by BlueArc Throughput Evaluation Using Network File System (NFS) Ver. 3 Protocol Document number: 208340 Release Date: 09 Mar 2009 Hitachi Data Systems commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of its High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series (HNAS 3200). The HNAS 3200 is a purpose-built network-attached storage (NAS) solution that incorporates the BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System under a strategic partnership between Hitachi Data Systems and BlueArc. Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single HNAS 3200 node when handling file-access requests using Network File System (NFS) Version 3 protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fiber Channel HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two HNAS 3200 nodes in a cluster in the same scenarios. Download the free report. Storage
Hitachi Data Systems HDS High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series with 10GbE, powered by BlueArc Throughput Evaluation Using the Common Internet File System ( CIFS) Protocol Document number: 208341 Release Date: 09 Mar 2009 Hitachi Data Systems commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of its High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series (HNAS 3200). The HNAS 3200 is a purpose-built network-attached storage (NAS) solution that incorporates the BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System under a strategic partnership between Hitachi Data Systems and BlueArc. Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single HNAS 3200 node when handling file-access requests using Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fiber Channel HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two HNAS 3200 nodes in a cluster in the same scenarios. Storage
BlueArc BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System Throughput Evaluation with the Common Internet File System (CIFS) Protocol Document number: 208352 Release Date: 06 Mar 2009 BlueArc Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of the Titan 3210 Network Storage System, a purpose-built network storage solution. Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single Titan 3210 node when handling file-access requests using the Common Internet File Systems (CIFS). The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fibre Channel (FC) HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two Titan 3210 nodes in cluster in the same scenarios. BlueArc’s Titan 3210 Network Storage System delivered near wire-speed, 10-GbE throughput conducting sequential read operations for various block sizes using CIFS file system and doubled its performance in the same tests by clustering two nodes. Tests were conducted in October 2008. Download the free report. Storage
BlueArc BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System Throughput Evaluation with NFS Version 3 Protocol Document number: 208351 Release Date: 20 Nov 2008 BlueArc Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of the Titan 3210 Network Storage System, a purpose-built network storage solution. Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single Titan 3210 node when handling file-access requests using the Network File Systems (NFS) Version 3 protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fibre Channel (FC) HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two Titan 3210 nodes in cluster in the same scenarios. BlueArc’s Titan 3210 Network Storage System delivered near wire-speed, 10-GbE throughput conducting sequential read operations for various block sizes using NFS file system and doubled its performance in the same tests by clustering two nodes. Tests were conducted in October 2008. Download the free report. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Hewlett-Packard Co. Hardware-Accelerated iSCSI Solutions Performance Comparison of Hardware and Software Accelerated iSCSI from ProLiant Servers to StorageWorks Storage Array Document number: 208305 Release Date: 16 Jul 2008 Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance benefits of multifunction server adapters in ProLiant servers featuring hardware-accelerated iSCSI over traditional software-based iSCSI initiators communicating to StorageWorks storage arrays. Tolly Group engineers tested two end-to-end iSCSI storage solutions from HP. The first was a ProLiant server with an HP NC373T Gigabit Server Adapter communicating with a StorageWorks 1200 All in One (AiO) Storage System. Engineers also tested a ProLiant DL380 G5 server with an HP NC373i Gigabit Server Adapter communicating with a StorageWorks 2012i Modular Smart Array (MSA2012i). Tests compared the throughput and CPU utilization of software-based iSCSI (Microsoft iSCSI initiator) against hardware-accelerated iSCSI under various disk access scenarios, using and Iometer test tool. Tests were conducted in April 2008. Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Hewlett-Packard Co. StorageWorks 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit Comparison of Performance and Ease of SAN Deployment using HP Simple SAN Connection Manager (SSCM) Solution Document number: 208276 Release Date: 20 Jun 2008 Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance of its Fibre Channel-based Storage-Works 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit compared to a traditional 4Gb Fibre Channel (FC) solution. The Tolly Group certified HP’s 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN solution featuring the StorageWorks 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit to be the “First 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN Solution” tested. Tolly Group engineers also compared the ease of deployment of a singlevendor end-to-end FC SAN, using HP’s Simple SAN Connection Manager, to that of a traditional multivendor FC SAN that required individual components like the HBA, switch and storage subsystem to be configured individually. Tests focused on the number of configuration steps and variables that needed to be configured to finish the deployment of the SAN. Tests were conducted in February 2008. Storage
Linksys, Inc. Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID Competitive Performance Evaluation of Network-Attached Storage Systems-PODCAST Document number: 208254PO Release Date: 20 Feb 2008 This podcast focuses on the Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID. This podcast features a conversation on a recent Tolly Group Up-to-spec test of the Network Storage System NSS6100. Details of the test can be found in Tolly Group document 208254 Click below to download/listen the "podcast" MP3 audio file. Storage
Linksys, Inc. Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID Competitive Performance Evaluation of Network- Attached Storage Systems Document number: 208254 Release Date: 20 Feb 2008 Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, Inc., commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance and features of the NSS6100 network-attached storage appliance against NETGEAR’s ReadyNAS™ 1100, and ReadyNAS™ NV+; along with Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc.’s TeraStation PRO™ II appliances. The Tolly Group examined the NAS appliances’ multi-client file server performance using Ziff Davis Media’s Net-Bench 7.0.3 benchmarking test suite. As a baseline to compare against other single-client I/O tests, engineers also evaluated the single client read-and-write mode I/O performance using IOZone benchmark version 3.282. Tests focused on RAID 1, RAID 5 and JBOD configurations, and with on-disk encryption enabled, when supported. Tests were conducted in December 2007. Storage
QLogic Corp. "Talking Outside the Box": Podcast Interview with QLogic's Tim Lustig and Overview of Tolly Up-to-spec Testing Document number: 207203 Release Date: 01 Feb 2007 This 14-minute podcast focuses on Fibre Channel Storage Area Networking (SAN). Tolly Group Pres/CEO, Kevin Tolly, provides an overview of a recent Tolly Group Up-to-spec test of QLogic’s SANbox5600. In addition, Charlie Bruno, Executive Editor of The Tolly Group, discusses the ramifications of the test with QLogic's Tim Lustig. Details of the test can be found in Tolly Group document 206124. Storage
Red Gate Software Ltd. Red Gate Software SQL Backup Pro 4.5 Performance Evaluation of Disk-to-Disk Backup vs. Idera SQLsafe 3.0 and Quest Software LiteSpeed for SQL Server 4.5 Document number: 206144 Release Date: 22 Sep 2006 Red Gate Software commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the disk-to-disk backup performance of its SQL Backup Pro 4.5 versus competing offerings from Idera and Quest Software. Using a single 0.8-TB database built from Wikipedia public data, engineers evaluated product performance when configured with a range of compression and encryption options. The tests were conducted in July 2006. Storage
QLogic Corp. Tolly Group White Paper Series– Architecture in Action: Building SANs with Stacks Document number: 206124 Release Date: 08 Aug 2006 QLogic commissioned The Tolly Group to build a microcosm of an SMB/Enterprise Fibre Channel environment to quantify critical elements related to scalability and management of competing SAN approaches, as well as to analyze the economic impact of each. This white paper provides a hands-on assessment of the scalability issues and the cost-of-ownership for the QLogic SANbox 5000 versus rival products that utilize a different architectural approach to SANs. QLogic SANbox 5000 series “stackable” switches provide high-speed 10-Gigabit per second (Gbps) links dedicated to linking individual physical switches without reducing the number of ports available for use by end-user devices. In effect, this approach creates a virtual backplane bringing the performance advantages of the chassis approach to low-cost fixed-port switches. The white paper is based on two hands-on examinations conducted by The Tolly Group. In the first part, The Tolly Group “built out” an actual SAN using two alternative offerings. The goal was to illustrate the configuration effort and to quantify hardware/software requirements associated with growing a SAN from an “entry” level connecting just two Fibre Channel devices through to a point where scores of devices could be connected. In the second part of the study, engineer/analysts built and validated a cost model comparing the QLogic solution versus several leading “non-stackable” alternatives. Storage
BlueArc BlueArc Corp. Titan 2200 Network Attached Storage System, Throughput Evaluation Under Mixed I/O Scenarios Document number: 206132 Release Date: 15 May 2006 BlueArc Corp. commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the performance of the company’s Titan 2200, a network-attached storage (NAS) solution that the company claims is the fastest system on the market and also the most scalable, able to consolidate and manage up to 512 terabytes of data in a single storage pool. Tolly Group engineers focused tests on the average throughput of a single Titan 2200 node handling I/O requests between 48 client PCs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations. Storage
Tacit Networks, Inc. (Packeteer/Blue Coat) Tacit Networks Ishared Server and Ishared Remote Appliances, Performance and Functionality Evaluation Document number: 205133 Release Date: 25 Oct 2005 Tacit Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance and verify key functionality for the company’s Ishared Remote and Ishared Server appliances running its full suite of Ishared “Stackable” Services. Tacit Networks’ Ishared product line consists of network appliances designed to deliver wide area file services (WAFS) and other branch office IT services on a single consolidated platform. Tolly Group engineers conducted extensive performance tests designed to measure the effectiveness of the Tacit Networks appliances – in terms of the response time improvements delivered to users and the yield in bandwidth reduction from caching frequently requested files and E-mail with attachments on local Ishared Remote devices. Tolly Group engineers also verified the presence of several key features and services, including, Server Message Block (SMB) packet signature compatibility, WAFS security and resiliency in the face of WAN circuit disruptions, and the presence of print, DNS, DHCP and Web caching services. Tests were conducted by Tolly Group engineers in September 2005 at Tacit Networks facilities in South Plainfield, NJ. Storage
Maranti Networks, Inc. (EMC) Maranti, Inc. CoreSTOR 2000 Network Storage Controller SAN Performance Document number: 204143 Release Date: 19 Oct 2004 Maranti, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate its CoreSTOR 2000™ Network Storage Controller, a modular, high-performance network storage controller that delivers 8 to 16 ports across a 3U chassis. CoreSTOR 2000 delivers wire-speed storage virtualization and native CoreSTOR storage services to heterogeneous storage arrays and servers across all ports on the chassis. By supporting Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel ports across the chassis, CoreSTOR 2000 provides connectivity between existing Fibre Channel and emerging iSCSI environments. Tolly Group engineers measured the performance of the CoreSTOR 2000 in a simulated Exchange and SQL server environment and in three main areas: the I/O processing rate (I/O per second or IOPS), remote mirroring performance and high availability of the storage network controller when subjected to a number of scenarios. Tests show that the Maranti CoreSTOR 2000 delivers consistent I/O processing performance; in fact, IOPS performance actually increases as the number of servers was ramped up from one, to four and then eight. Moreover, the CoreSTOR 2000 increased performance in most cases, as the number of local and remote mirrored storage subsystems increased. Interestingly, as loading increased on the CoreSTOR 2000, response times climbed as the number of servers increased, due to more I/O requests to the controller of the storage arrays. Response times decreased, however, as the number of storage subsystems increased because the requests were spread out to all available storage arrays via Maranti proprietary load-balancing scheme. Tests were conducted during August 2004. Storage

Huawei Technologies, Co.Ltd Competitive Test of Huawei Lossless Ethernet Solution for Hyper-converged Data Center Networks Centralized Storage: Huawei Ethernet-based NoF+ vs. Fibre Channel HPC: Huawei Lossless Ethernet vs. InﬁniBand

Document number: 221138
Release Date: 25 Sep 2021

Traditional data centers may be built on multiple fabrics – Ethernet for server interconnection, Fibre channel for storage networks, and InfiniBand for high performance compute clusters.

With new development of Ethernet, such as lossless Ethernet technologies, high performance Ethernet NICs supporting RDMA and MPI, NVMe over RoCE all-flash storage systems, Ethernet-based data center network solutions started to replace Fibre Channel and InfiniBand solutions to provide equivalent or better performance. Furthermore, Ethernet solutions are typically more cost effective. They are supported by more vendors. And 400G Ethernet switches are widely available on market now while current Fibre Channel switches typically only support up to 64G FC ports. For all these reasons, modern data centers are moving from the multi-protocol mode towards converged all-Ethernet.

Based on the considerations above, Huawei launched the hyper-converged data center networks CloudFabric 3.0 solution. It consists of two components: Huawei CloudEngine data center switches, and Huawei iMaster NCE-Fabric, an intelligent network management and control system.

Huawei commissioned Tolly to evaluate Huawei’s lossless Ethernet data center network solution, and compare it with Fibre Channel in storage area network test cases and with InfiniBand in high performance computing scenarios. Storage

Dell Technologies Dell EMC CloudIQ for PowerEdge Server Infrastructure Insights

Document number: 221129
Release Date: 22 Sep 2021

Managing datacenters can be very challenging. The rise of the internet of things (IoT) has driven growth in distributed edge computing and many system admins support systems from remote locations or home on a regular basis. Real intelligence is needed to manage systems effectively.

With these needs in mind, Dell Technologies several years ago introduced Dell EMC CloudIQ, a cloud-native application that combines machine intelligence and human intelligence, provides IT administrators with a single-pane-of-glass view of their storage systems globally. Dell EMC CloudIQ has now been extended to include Dell EMC PowerEdge Server systems.

Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to validate the “Time to Value” and “Time to Insight” of CloudIQ in conjunction with managing Dell PowerEdge servers. Tolly found a rapid time to value of under 30 minutes and time to insight that is 3X faster for an average Dell EMC customer. Storage

Broadcom Inc. Lenovo ThinkSystem Emulex LPe36002 Host Bus Adapter 64G Fibre Channel Performance vs. 32G and 16G HBA Modes

Document number: 221134
Release Date: 24 Aug 2021

Data storage and retrieval is growing at an extraordinary pace. Analysts note that data grew world-wide by 4x in recent years and that database data warehousing will double in the next five years. Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can dramatically increase data retrieval rates.

Next-generation Fibre Channel alone and in conjunction with next-generation PCIe 4.0 technology can provide dramatic improvements in application data throughput. Lenovo’s ThinkSystem Emulex Gen 7 LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel (64G) dual-port host bus adapter (HBA) leverages both 64G and PCIe 4.0.

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of the new adapter in terms of raw performance and compared to existing 32G Fibre Channel (32G) HBAs. The adapter demonstrated dual-port performance in excess of 11 million IOPS. Running relational database transaction benchmarks, the adapter effectively doubled performance by dramatically cutting run times. Similarly, the adapter leveraged PCIe 4.0 technology increasing application throughput to ~12,000MBPS compared to ~6,600MBPS maximum achieved on PCIe 3.0 servers. Storage

Broadcom Inc. Emulex® LPe36002 Host Bus Adapter, 64G Fibre Channel HBA Performance vs. 32G

Document number: 221123
Release Date: 11 May 2021

Data storage and retrieval is growing at an extraordinary pace. Analysts note that data grew world-wide by 4x in recent years and that database data warehousing will double in the next five years. Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can dramatically increase data retrieval rates.

Next-generation Fibre Channel alone and in conjunction with next-generation PCIe 4.0 technology can provide dramatic improvements in application data throughput. Broadcom’s Emulex Gen 7 LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel (64G) dual- port host bus adapter (HBA) leverages both 64G and PCIe 4.0.

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its new adapter in terms of raw performance and compared to existing 32G Fibre Channel (32G) HBAs. The adapter demonstrated dual-port performance in excess of 11 million IOPS. Running relational database transaction benchmarks, the adapter effectively doubled performance by dramatically cutting run times. Similarly, the adapter leveraged PCIe 4.0 technology increasing application throughput to ~12,000MBPS compared to ~6,600MBPS maximum achieved on PCIe 3.0 servers. Storage

Dell Technologies Infographic: Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server

Document number: 221119
Release Date: 08 Mar 2021

Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to study the specifications and characteristics of its Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 and provide analysis and context as to where the device sits in terms of advancing the industry.

View the Infographic on the key takeaways from the Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 analysis.

The full Tolly report can be downloaded from here. Storage

Dell Technologies Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server Scalability, Eﬃciency & Flexibility Analysis

Document number: 221109
Release Date: 04 Feb 2021

Nothing seems to grow faster than the need for storage. Few in the world of IT would argue otherwise. With IoT, image, and video objects feeding “big data” analytics systems, that growth curve can be steep as new systems are placed online. Dell Technologies has engineered its latest storage server with a focus on high-density, high-capacity storage customers.

Dell Technologies commissioned Tolly to study the specifications and characteristics of its Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 and provide analysis and context as to where the device sits in terms of advancing the industry.

Tolly found that the Dell EMC PowerEdge XE7100 Storage Server provides significant scalability and efficiency benefits both compared to prior generation systems and compared to current generation systems of a leading competitor. Significantly, the unit provides module server sled options that allow for high-performance optimization for specific application focus areas such storage/archival, intelligent video analysis (IVA), and media streaming. Storage

Broadcom Inc. Emulex® Gen 7 LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter NVMe over Fibre Channel vs. SCSI Performance

Document number: 220122
Release Date: 01 May 2020

Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load.

Fibre Channel leads the industry as the first transport with complete NVMe over Fabrics ecosystem support. Every major server vendor is shipping NVMe standard and offers Emulex NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) capable Host Bus Adapters (HBAs).

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC HBAs running NVMe/FC against the performance of the same adapters running in SCSI mode. The series of tests included database TPC-C-like tests using Microsoft SQL Server 2019 and Oracle Database 19c running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8). The Emulex LPe35002 HBA running in NVMe/FC mode demonstrated superior performance in both test scenarios. Storage

Broadcom Inc. Emulex® Gen 7 LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter NVMe over Fibre Channel vs. SCSI Performance in VMware ESXi 7 Environments

Document number: 220117
Release Date: 01 May 2020

Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load.

Fibre Channel leads the industry as the first transport with complete NVMe over Fabrics ecosystem support. Every major server vendor is shipping NVMe standard and offers Emulex NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC) capable Host Bus Adapters (HBAs).

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC HBAs running NVMe/FC against the performance of the same adapters running in SCSI mode. The series of tests included database TPC-C-like tests using Microsoft SQL Server 2017 and Oracle Database 19c running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8). The Emulex LPe35002 HBA running in NVMe/FC mode demonstrated superior performance in both test scenarios. Storage

Broadcom Inc. Emulex® LPe35002 Host Bus Adapter 32G Fibre Channel HBA Performance vs. Marvell QLogic QLE2772

Document number: 220114
Release Date: 24 Apr 2020

Innovations in server and storage technologies such as all-flash arrays, NVMe, and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) are delivering record speeds and lower latency to improve application performance. As a result, enterprise datacenters require high performance Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (32GFC) throughput for server connectivity that also provides extreme reliability and scalability under load. Additionally Gen 7 Fibre Channel maintains backward compatibility with existing Fibre Channel infrastructure to ensure streamlined performance upgrades.

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its Emulex Gen 7 LPe35002 32GFC host bus adapter (HBA) against the performance of Marvell’s QLogic QLE2772 32GFC HBA (branded as “enhanced 32GFC”), running database applications and synthetic benchmarks. Both products are second generation, dual- port, 32GFC HBAs. The series of enterprise datacenter-oriented tests performed included synthetic IO, latency, bandwidth, and database TPC-C-like tests.

The Emulex LPe35002 HBA demonstrated superior performance across all test scenarios including up to 5x higher IOPS, as much as 1/2 the latency, and approximately 20% more transactions per minute (TPM) for Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database OLTP workloads. Storage

Dell Technologies Webinar - Future Proof Your VMware Cloud Foundation Infrastructure for Uncertain Times

Document number: 220119
Release Date: 16 Apr 2020

Requirements for change on an IT Infrastructure are at an all time high. Unprecedented demand for work from home means further strain on often already strapped server infrastructure.

In this session we actively discuss how customers have been coping with these critical business demands and how to, not only deliver mission critical applications with changing requirements on IT, but also plan for future changes.

We will also discuss how VMWare Cloud Foundation 4.0 validated design on PowerEdge MX delivers cloud infrastructure that is built for unique innovation.

View the on-demand webcast with Kevin Tolly, Founder at The Tolly Group presenting the study results along with Seamus Jones, Technical Marketing and Roger Foreman, Software Product Marketing at Dell Technologies by clicking on the link below which will take you to the Dell webcast landing page.

Dell Webcast View On-demand Landing Page.

The Tolly report can be downloaded from here. Storage

Dell Technologies Tolly Proven PowerEdge MX Reference Architecture for VMware Cloud Foundation and Deployment Best Practices

Document number: 220102
Release Date: 06 Apr 2020

Large data centers are by nature complex. Deploying and managing data centers consisting of hundreds of compute and storage resources and likely thousands of virtual machines (VM) is no simple task, however. What you need for hybrid cloud is a single integrated solution that is easy to deploy and operate through built-in automated lifecycle management. What you need is VMware Cloud Foundation.

VMware Cloud Foundation is the capstone to the VMware product suite that delivers the data center of today and of the future. Cloud Foundation was born to run on Dell Technologies PowerEdge MX7000 modular, software-defined server infrastructure which, importantly, is a VMware Validated Design (VVD). The PowerEdge MX7000 is a chassis with its eight slots for compute and/or storage resources (sleds) meshes perfectly with VMware’s recommended cluster size of four hosts. Our intent is to describe in a realistic fashion how much infrastructure (hardware), time, and capital investment is required to get it off the ground and expand it down the road. VVD is a set of stringent design criteria established by VMware for SDDC.

In this project, we will build out a production-ready Cloud Foundation built on the Dell PowerEdge MX Modular Server Infrastructure. Our initial system will be built in a single chassis and provide a fully functional management cluster of four hosts running VMware SDDC Manager (Software-defined data center) along with all related VMware features and functions needed to deploy and manage a sophisticated hybrid cloud data center.

Then, we will outline the steps and changes required to grow from our single chassis to a multi-chassis deployment where two or more chassis build upon the initial Cloud Foundation installation. In fact, this solution is easily expandable to up to 10 PowerEdge MX chassis within the same low latency, inter-chassis, scalable network fabric.

The Tolly Group worked closely with Dell Technologies to document a “Tolly Proven” reference architecture/solution for leveraging Dell PowerEdge MX for private cloud deployment. The conceptual guidance provided in this document works hand- in-hand with Dell’s step-by-step cookbook on the topic: “Dell EMC VMware Cloud Foundation for PowerEdge MX700 - Deployment Guide” (Cloud Foundation Cookbook for short). Storage

Dell Technologies Webinar - Dell iDRAC9 v4.0 Telemetry Streaming

Document number: 220109
Release Date: 21 Feb 2020

The datacenter of the future will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive predictive & proactive management of the server infrastructure. In turn, AI systems rely on ingesting massive amounts of granular data. iDRAC9’s Telemetry Streaming, available with the new iDRAC9 Datacenter license, is architected to provide highly granular, high-value data using resource-efficient data streaming.

View the on-demand webcast with Kevin Tolly, Founder at The Tolly Group presenting the study results along with Rick Hall, Systems Management Product Planning and Strategy, Doug Iler, iDRAC Product Manager and Michael Brown, Distinguished Engineer at Dell Technologies by clicking on the link below which will take you to the Dell webcast landing page.

Dell iDRAC9 v4.0 Webcast View On-demand Landing Page.

The Tolly report can be downloaded from here.

(Note: There is no download for this webcast item.) Storage

Dell Technologies iDRAC9 Telemetry Streaming Evaluation of The Performance and Efficiency of Telemetry Streaming in the New iDRAC9 v4.0 Release

Document number: 220101
Release Date: 18 Feb 2020

The datacenter of the future will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to drive predictive & proactive management of the server infrastructure. In turn, AI systems rely on ingesting massive amounts of granular data. iDRAC9’s Telemetry Streaming, available with the new iDRAC9 Datacenter license, is architected to provide highly granular, high-value data using resource-efficient data streaming.

Dell EMC commissioned Tolly to benchmark the number of data points collected from a representative PowerEdge server via iDRAC9 v4.00.00.00 in a 24-hour period and compare that to a prior, less data-rich monitoring implementation. Additionally, data collection via polling and streaming were compared for network efficiency.

Tolly found that iDRAC9 Telemetry Streaming running on a representative test system produced over 2.9M data points in a 24-hour period compared with 6,240 data points for a typical polled server using the existing Redfish interfaces and a reasonable real-world polling interval of 30 minutes. With Telemetry Streaming each 24-hour report can be collected via a single HTTP request compared with a per-report best case of 17,280 HTTP requests to collect a single report daily. Storage

NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-5 25GbE Ethernet Adapter Adapter Performance vs Broadcom NetXtreme E

Document number: 219130
Release Date: 07 Oct 2019

Data center computing environments for Cloud, Edge Computing and Hyper- converged infrastructures (HCI) demand high performance throughput, 25GbE or higher server connectivity, scalability and resilience.

NVIDIA® Mellanox® commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of its ConnectX®-5 25GbE network adapter against the performance of Broadcom’s NetXtreme® E 25GbE network adapter in cloud and storage computing environments. The series of datacenter-oriented tests used included RoCE fabric, FIO, DPDK RFC 2544 and DPDK CPU throughput.

The ConnectX-5 25GbE adapter demonstrated higher throughput, better scale and lower resource utilization across the set of test scenarios. . Storage

Broadcom Inc. Broadcom NetXtreme® 25GbE Adapter Ethernet Adapter Impact on vSAN Performance: Competitive Comparison

Document number: 219123
Release Date: 04 Jun 2019

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines virtualization, computer servers, the storage network and storage to provide a simplified architecture that offers both agility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). HCI implementations such as VMware vSphere/vSAN can be optimized and deliver higher performance using 25GbE networking.

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the vSAN storage networking performance of the Broadcom NetXtreme 25Gb Ethernet Adapter in a VMware hyperconverged environment and compare those results to similar Ethernet adapters from Intel, Marvell and Mellanox.

The Broadcom NetXtreme adapter outperformed the competing solutions in both IOPS and data throughput in all scenarios of 16KB blocks and higher. Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Proof of Concept - HPE Synergy Composable Infrastructure

Document number: 217120
Release Date: 23 Aug 2017

All hyperbole aside, “Composable Infrastructure” offers an approach to server provisioning that is a radical departure from prior solutions - and with radical benefits. HPE Synergy helps customers reduce complexity, deploy more rapidly and bring cloud-like speed to the corporate datacenter.

HPE commissioned Tolly to run common Proof of Concept (POC) test scenarios that would be applicable to most infrastructure customers. Tolly engineers worked through nearly 20 different scenarios across four key areas: infrastructure, stateless boot/streaming, storage provisioning, and network fabric configuration. The goal in each of these scenarios was to validate important capabilities of HPE Synergy. Storage

Load DynamiX, Inc. Podcast: Flash Storage Benchmarking with Load DynamiX

Document number: 215143
Release Date: 13 Jul 2015

Flash Storage is increasingly important in Enterprise and cloud computing, while still relatively expensive, it can provide significant performance benefits. To be certain that the flash-based array is delivering up to its specifications, one needs to benchmark it.

Load DynamiX is a leader in the storage benchmarking space and in this podcast Tolly Group Founder Kevin Tolly discusses this important topic with Len Rosenthal, VP of Marketing, Load DynamiX.

Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP StoreEasy Storage: System Deployment, Ease-of-Use and Management Evaluation

Document number: 214129
Release Date: 15 Sep 2014

From the smallest branch office to the largest enterprise environment, storage is always an important consideration. Nowadays with audio files and video files becoming commonplace elements of business, storage demands reach terabyte levels even with a small number of users. HP believes that, across the board, businesses need efficient file storage that is both easy-to-manage and scalable.

HP commissioned Tolly to evaluate the HP StoreEasy Storage family of devices which consists of the HP StoreEasy 1000 Storage file appliances to provide simple file storage and the HP StoreEasy 3000 Gateway Storage file gateways to provide scalable connectivity to back-end storage area network (SAN) environments. Specifically, Tolly focused on initial deployment, ease-of-use and management of both systems. Storage

Fusion-io, Inc. Webcast: Fusion-io Hybrid Storage - The Proof is in the Performance

Document number: 214109
Release Date: 01 Feb 2014

LIVE DATE: January 23,2014

Speaker:

John Tolly, Director of Engineering, Tolly

Webcast Summary:

Listen to John Tolly from Tolly Group as he discusses their independent testing results comparing the performance of two different hybrid storage systems – Fusion ioControl Hybrid Storage using PCIe flash and a conventional hybrid architecture using NVRAM plus SSDs. You’ll learn how and where the performance of these two hybrid architectures differ and what it means to your application environment.

Hear John describe the test environment and the results, including comparisons of VM density, handling VDI boot storms, IOPS, latency, and various read/write workloads. Register now to understand the type of results you can achieve with hybrid storage systems. The webinar will feature live Q&A after the presentation.

View the on-demand Webcast by clicking the link below:

View Webcast Storage

Fusion-io, Inc. Fusion ioControl n5 Hybrid Storage Architecture Performance Comparison versus Conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk Architecture

Document number: 213154
Release Date: 15 Oct 2013

Conventional hybrid storage solutions use NVRAM (non-volatile RAM/flash) to cache data before writing to disk, then augment performance with an SSD read cache. While such solutions generally offer acceptable performance for small datasets, they are ultimately limited by the configuration and number of SSDs that can be deployed. In contrast, a hybrid storage approach can leverage PCIe based flash to provide better performance. This not only provides direct (non-SATA/SAS) access to block-level storage and fast read/write caching, but also allows for greater disk capacity per array shelf.

Fusion-io commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance of its ioControl Hybrid storage approach against a similarly-equipped conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk hybrid solution. Tolly found the Fusion-io solution to offer high performance and scalability. In block level access tests, Fusion-io provided up to 7X better performance than the conventional NVRAM+SSD+Disk solution under test.

Storage

Overland Storage Overland Storage SnapScale X2 Network Attached Storage Performance and Scalability Evaluation

Document number: 213140
Release Date: 27 Sep 2013

Traditional scale-up Network Attached Storage (NAS) architecture uses a single head unit to control and protect a number of disk arrays. Although popular, this approach introduces a single point of failure and potentially creates bottlenecks as additional capacity is added. Scale-out architectures, on the other hand, leverage multiple head units (nodes) that work together to protect data, and can expand easily to spread processing power and bandwidth to maximize performance and redundancy.

Overland Storage commissioned Tolly to evaluate the scalability and performance of their new SnapScale X2 clustered NAS solution. Tolly evaluated the SnapScale X2 platform in sequential and random read/write test scenarios. Tolly validated that the SnapScale X2 can scale to 50 nodes seamlessly, with no disruption. Adding nodes increased the capacity and also improved cluster-wide performance as additional nodes were added to the cluster. Storage

Quantum Corporation Quantum vmPRO Data Protection Solution for VMware An Evaluation of Ease-of-Implementation, Functionality, and Interoperability in VMware vSphere 5 Environments

Document number: 212100
Release Date: 02 Feb 2012

With virtualization’s ever-increasing adoption by small and medium size businesses (SMBs), and remote or branch offices (ROBOs), IT administrators face a major overhaul of the critical infrastructure that supports the expanding virtual environment.

In the data protection arena, while the environment will shift, the goal remains the same: to provide backup and restore capabilities to every server instance both as a whole, and as a file structure for individual recovery. The task then becomes choosing and implementing data protection for virtualized environments while maintaining interoperability and manageability with existing disaster recovery deployments. Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP X5000 G2 Network Storage System System Ease-of-Use, High-Availability, Performance, and Interoperability Evaluation

Document number: 211130
Release Date: 06 Dec 2011

Today’s small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) have ever-growing needs with respect to storage. Not only do SMBs often need many terabytes of storage, they require a level of high-availability (HA) typically associated with large-scale, enterprise deployments. Furthermore, given IT staffing constraints, storage solutions should be easily installed and managed by existing IT staff.

Tests show that a 2-node, HP X5520 G2 9.6TB LFF 15K Network Storage System (hereafter X5000 G2) could be installed “out-of-the-box” to a fully-functional, HA system joined to a Microsoft domain in less than 90 minutes. The HP-supplied Initial Configuration Tasks tool guides the user through each deployment stage, eliminating a great deal of manual configuration. Storage

Quest Software, Inc. Quest vRanger Pro 5.2  Performance and Ease-of-Use Evaluation in VMware ESXi 4.1u1 Environments

Document number: 211134
Release Date: 05 Dec 2011

Small and medium size business (SMB) networks are facing increasing demands for data protection in their virtualized environments. As server consolidation continues, SMBs are unlikely to adhere to the level of redundancy sought by enterprise class datacenters. However, planning for the unexpected provides for a quick recovery in the event of an outage.

All SMBs can benefit from a flexible platform which can provide the desired backup, recovery, and replication features, while effortlessly integrating with their specific environment. A solution which can be implemented as a virtual or physical machine, on the LAN or SAN is preferable where storage may not be centralized, or additional servers may be hard to come by. Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP StorageWorks X3820 2-node Network Storage System: High-Availability Storage for SMB System Evaluation

Document number: 210122
Release Date: 10 Jun 2010

Today’s small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) have ever-growing needs with respect to storage. Not only do SMBs need to be able to scale to many terabytes of storage, they require a level of high-availability typically associated with large-scale, enterprise deployments. Furthermore, given IT staffing constraints, they need such storage solutions to be able to be installed quickly by existing IT staff.

HP commissioned Tolly to evaluate the ease-of-installation, high-availability, performance and system support of the HP StorageWorks X3820 2-node Netwok Storage System in the context of SMB deployment. Storage

Symantec Corporation Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 & Symantec Veritas NetBackup 6.5.3: VMware Environment Data Protection Performance Versus EMC NetWorker 7.5

Document number: 209118
Release Date: 17 May 2009

Symantec Corporation commissioned Tolly to evaluate the data protection performance of Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 & Symantec Veritas NetBackup 6.5.3 and compare them with EMC NetWorker 7.5 in a VMware environment.

Testing evaluated backup performance and recovery performance for the full VMware ESX virtual machines as well as individual files residing within a given virtual machine.

Download the free test report. Storage

Hitachi Data Systems HDS High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series with 10GbE, powered by BlueArc Throughput Evaluation Using Network File System (NFS) Ver. 3 Protocol

Document number: 208340
Release Date: 09 Mar 2009

Hitachi Data Systems commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of its High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series (HNAS 3200). The HNAS 3200 is a purpose-built network-attached storage (NAS) solution that incorporates the BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System under a strategic partnership between Hitachi Data Systems and BlueArc.

Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single HNAS 3200 node when handling file-access requests using Network File System (NFS) Version 3 protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fiber Channel HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two HNAS 3200 nodes in a cluster in the same scenarios.
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Storage

Hitachi Data Systems HDS High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series with 10GbE, powered by BlueArc Throughput Evaluation Using the Common Internet File System ( CIFS) Protocol

Document number: 208341
Release Date: 09 Mar 2009

Hitachi Data Systems commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of its High-performance NAS Platform 3200 Series (HNAS 3200). The HNAS 3200 is a purpose-built network-attached storage (NAS) solution that incorporates the BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System under a strategic partnership between Hitachi Data Systems and BlueArc.

Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single HNAS 3200 node when handling file-access requests using Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fiber Channel HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two HNAS 3200 nodes in a cluster in the same scenarios.

Storage

BlueArc BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System Throughput Evaluation with the Common Internet File System (CIFS) Protocol

Document number: 208352
Release Date: 06 Mar 2009

BlueArc Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of the Titan 3210 Network Storage System, a purpose-built network storage solution.

Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single Titan 3210 node when handling file-access requests using the Common Internet File Systems (CIFS). The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fibre Channel (FC) HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two Titan 3210 nodes in cluster in the same scenarios. BlueArc’s Titan 3210 Network Storage System delivered near wire-speed, 10-GbE throughput conducting sequential read operations for various block sizes using CIFS file system and doubled its performance in the same tests by clustering two nodes.

Tests were conducted in October 2008.

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BlueArc BlueArc Titan 3210 Network Storage System Throughput Evaluation with NFS Version 3 Protocol

Document number: 208351
Release Date: 20 Nov 2008

BlueArc Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the I/O performance characteristics of the Titan 3210 Network Storage System, a purpose-built network storage solution.

Tolly Group engineers measured the throughput of a single Titan 3210 node when handling file-access requests using the Network File Systems (NFS) Version 3 protocol. The back-end storage system used for testing was Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) outfitted with 256 Fibre Channel (FC) HDDs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations from/to back-end disks with sequential access. Engineers also measured the throughput of two Titan 3210 nodes in cluster in the same scenarios. BlueArc’s Titan 3210 Network Storage System delivered near wire-speed, 10-GbE throughput conducting sequential read operations for various block sizes using NFS file system and doubled its performance in the same tests by clustering two nodes.

Tests were conducted in October 2008.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Hewlett-Packard Co. Hardware-Accelerated iSCSI Solutions Performance Comparison of Hardware and Software Accelerated iSCSI from ProLiant Servers to StorageWorks Storage Array

Document number: 208305
Release Date: 16 Jul 2008

Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance benefits of multifunction server adapters in ProLiant servers featuring hardware-accelerated iSCSI over traditional software-based iSCSI initiators communicating to StorageWorks storage arrays.

Tolly Group engineers tested two end-to-end iSCSI storage solutions from HP. The first was a ProLiant server with an HP NC373T Gigabit Server Adapter communicating with a StorageWorks 1200 All in One (AiO) Storage System. Engineers also tested a ProLiant DL380 G5 server with an HP NC373i Gigabit Server Adapter communicating with a StorageWorks 2012i Modular Smart Array (MSA2012i). Tests compared the throughput and CPU utilization of software-based iSCSI (Microsoft iSCSI initiator) against hardware-accelerated iSCSI under various disk access scenarios, using and Iometer test tool.

Tests were conducted in April 2008.

Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Hewlett-Packard Co. StorageWorks 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit Comparison of Performance and Ease of SAN Deployment using HP Simple SAN Connection Manager (SSCM) Solution

Document number: 208276
Release Date: 20 Jun 2008

Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance of its Fibre Channel-based Storage-Works 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit compared to a traditional 4Gb Fibre Channel (FC) solution.

The Tolly Group certified HP’s 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN solution featuring the StorageWorks 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit to be the “First 8Gb Fibre Channel SAN Solution” tested. Tolly Group engineers also compared the ease of deployment of a singlevendor end-to-end FC SAN, using HP’s Simple SAN Connection Manager, to that of a traditional multivendor FC SAN that required individual components like the HBA, switch and storage subsystem to be configured individually. Tests focused on the number of configuration steps and variables that needed to be configured to finish the deployment of the SAN.

Tests were conducted in February 2008.

Storage

Linksys, Inc. Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID Competitive Performance Evaluation of Network-Attached Storage Systems-PODCAST

Document number: 208254PO
Release Date: 20 Feb 2008

This podcast focuses on the Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID. This podcast features a conversation on a recent Tolly Group Up-to-spec test of the Network Storage System NSS6100.
Details of the test can be found in Tolly Group document 208254

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Linksys, Inc. Network Storage System NSS6100 Four Bay, 1TB Advanced Gigabit Chassis with RAID Competitive Performance Evaluation of Network- Attached Storage Systems

Document number: 208254
Release Date: 20 Feb 2008

Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, Inc., commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance and features of the NSS6100 network-attached storage appliance against NETGEAR’s ReadyNAS™ 1100, and ReadyNAS™ NV+; along with Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc.’s TeraStation PRO™ II appliances.

The Tolly Group examined the NAS appliances’ multi-client file server performance using Ziff Davis Media’s Net-Bench 7.0.3 benchmarking test suite. As a baseline to compare against other single-client I/O tests, engineers also evaluated the single client read-and-write mode I/O performance using IOZone benchmark version 3.282. Tests focused on RAID 1, RAID 5 and JBOD configurations, and with on-disk encryption enabled, when supported. Tests were conducted in December 2007.

Storage

QLogic Corp. "Talking Outside the Box": Podcast Interview with QLogic's Tim Lustig and Overview of Tolly Up-to-spec Testing

Document number: 207203
Release Date: 01 Feb 2007

This 14-minute podcast focuses on Fibre Channel Storage Area Networking (SAN). Tolly Group Pres/CEO, Kevin Tolly, provides an overview of a recent Tolly Group Up-to-spec test of QLogic’s SANbox5600.

In addition, Charlie Bruno, Executive Editor of The Tolly Group, discusses the ramifications of the test with QLogic's Tim Lustig. Details of the test can be found in Tolly Group document 206124.

Storage

Red Gate Software Ltd. Red Gate Software SQL Backup Pro 4.5 Performance Evaluation of Disk-to-Disk Backup vs. Idera SQLsafe 3.0 and Quest Software LiteSpeed for SQL Server 4.5

Document number: 206144
Release Date: 22 Sep 2006

Red Gate Software commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the disk-to-disk backup performance of its SQL Backup Pro 4.5 versus competing offerings from Idera and Quest Software.

Using a single 0.8-TB database built from Wikipedia public data, engineers evaluated product performance when configured with a range of compression and encryption options. The tests were conducted in July 2006. Storage

QLogic Corp. Tolly Group White Paper Series– Architecture in Action: Building SANs with Stacks

Document number: 206124
Release Date: 08 Aug 2006

QLogic commissioned The Tolly Group to build a microcosm of an SMB/Enterprise Fibre Channel environment to quantify critical elements related to scalability and management of competing SAN approaches, as well as to analyze the economic impact of each. This white paper provides a hands-on assessment of the scalability issues and the cost-of-ownership for the QLogic SANbox 5000 versus rival products that utilize a different architectural approach to SANs.

QLogic SANbox 5000 series “stackable” switches provide high-speed 10-Gigabit per second (Gbps) links dedicated to linking individual physical switches without reducing the number of ports available for use by end-user devices. In effect, this approach creates a virtual backplane bringing the performance advantages of the chassis approach to low-cost fixed-port switches. The white paper is based on two hands-on examinations conducted by The Tolly Group.

In the first part, The Tolly Group “built out” an actual SAN using two alternative offerings. The goal was to illustrate the configuration effort and to quantify hardware/software requirements associated with growing a SAN from an “entry” level connecting just two Fibre Channel devices through to a point where scores of devices could be connected.

In the second part of the study, engineer/analysts built and validated a cost model comparing the QLogic solution versus several leading “non-stackable” alternatives.

Storage

BlueArc BlueArc Corp. Titan 2200 Network Attached Storage System, Throughput Evaluation Under Mixed I/O Scenarios

Document number: 206132
Release Date: 15 May 2006

BlueArc Corp. commissioned The Tolly Group to examine the performance of the company’s Titan 2200, a network-attached storage (NAS) solution that the company claims is the fastest system on the market and also the most scalable, able to consolidate and manage up to 512 terabytes of data in a single storage pool.

Tolly Group engineers focused tests on the average throughput of a single Titan 2200 node handling I/O requests between 48 client PCs. Throughput was measured for a variety of read, write and mixed read/write operations.

Storage

Tacit Networks, Inc. (Packeteer/Blue Coat) Tacit Networks Ishared Server and Ishared Remote Appliances, Performance and Functionality Evaluation

Document number: 205133
Release Date: 25 Oct 2005

Tacit Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance and verify key functionality for the company’s Ishared Remote and Ishared Server appliances running its full suite of Ishared “Stackable” Services. Tacit Networks’ Ishared product line consists of network appliances designed to deliver wide area file services (WAFS) and other branch office IT services on a single consolidated platform.

Tolly Group engineers conducted extensive performance tests designed to measure the effectiveness of the Tacit Networks appliances – in terms of the response time improvements delivered to users and the yield in bandwidth reduction from caching frequently requested files and E-mail with attachments on local Ishared Remote devices. Tolly Group engineers also verified the presence of several key features and services, including, Server Message Block (SMB) packet signature compatibility, WAFS security and resiliency in the face of WAN circuit disruptions, and the presence of print, DNS, DHCP and Web caching services. Tests were conducted by Tolly Group engineers in September 2005 at Tacit Networks facilities in South Plainfield, NJ. Storage

Maranti Networks, Inc. (EMC) Maranti, Inc. CoreSTOR 2000 Network Storage Controller SAN Performance

Document number: 204143
Release Date: 19 Oct 2004

Maranti, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate its CoreSTOR 2000™ Network Storage Controller, a modular, high-performance network storage controller that delivers 8 to 16 ports across a 3U chassis. CoreSTOR 2000 delivers wire-speed storage virtualization and native CoreSTOR storage services to heterogeneous storage arrays and servers across all ports on the chassis. By supporting Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel ports across the chassis, CoreSTOR 2000 provides connectivity between existing Fibre Channel and emerging iSCSI environments.

Tolly Group engineers measured the performance of the CoreSTOR 2000 in a simulated Exchange and SQL server environment and in three main areas: the I/O processing rate (I/O per second or IOPS), remote mirroring performance and high availability of the storage network controller when subjected to a number of scenarios.

Tests show that the Maranti CoreSTOR 2000 delivers consistent I/O processing performance; in fact, IOPS performance actually increases as the number of servers was ramped up from one, to four and then eight. Moreover, the CoreSTOR 2000 increased performance in most cases, as the number of local and remote mirrored storage subsystems increased. Interestingly, as loading increased on the CoreSTOR 2000, response times climbed as the number of servers increased, due to more I/O requests to the controller of the storage arrays. Response times decreased, however, as the number of storage subsystems increased because the requests were spread out to all available storage arrays via Maranti proprietary load-balancing scheme. Tests were conducted during August 2004. Storage