Abstract

With each new generation of technology performance improvements are expected.  There are times,  though, where technological advancements on multiple fronts produce very dramatic benefits.  This the case when the Broadcom Emulex LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA) is paired with AMD's new EPYC servers.

Broadcom commissioned Tolly to benchmark the performance of the Broadcom Emulex LPe36002 64G Fibre Channel dual-port host bus adapter (HBA) running in an AMD EPYC-class server (hereafter EPYC) and compare that to the same combined workload performance running in four separate, Intel Purley-class servers (hereafter Purley) each outfitted with a 16GFC HBA as was standard with that server generation.  NVMe/FC vs. SCSI/FC were also compared to highlight the performance potential of the NVMe/FC feature that is available in the this 7th generation HBA and EPYC servers. 

Tests showed that the new AMD EPYC - based platform's increased  CPU power and improved memory performance/capacity improved multiple workloads and provide an environment where a database  application can push the Emulex 64G FC HBA to full line rate performance of 64GFC thus matching the combined application throughput of four Purley platform servers using 16GFC HBAs. NVMe/FC demonstrated better performance than SCSI/FC.