Author
Updated
23 Feb 2021Form Number
LP0495PDF size
32 pages, 377 KB* Only available in selected markets
Abstract
The Emulex 16 Gb Generation 6 Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapters (HBAs) are an ideal solution when requiring high-speed data transfer in storage connectivity for virtualized environments, data backup, and mission-critical applications.
This product guide describes the Emulex HBAs and provides essential pre-sales information to understand the products, their key features and specifications, and compatibility. This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, and IT architects who want to learn more about the adapters and consider their use in IT solutions.
Change History
Changes in the February 23, 2021 update:
- The server support tables are now automatically updated - Server support section
Learn about the key features of the Emulex adapters
Introduction
The Emulex 16 Gb (Generation 6) Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapters (HBAs) are an ideal solution when requiring high-speed data transfer in storage connectivity for virtualized environments, data backup, and mission-critical applications. They are designed to meet the needs of modern networked storage systems that utilize high performance and low latency solid state storage drives for caching and persistent storage as well as hard disk drive arrays.
The Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs feature ExpressLane, which prioritizes mission-critical traffic in congested networks ensuring maximum application performance on flash storage arrays. They also seamlessly support Brocade ClearLink diagnostics through Emulex HBA Manager (formerly named Emulex OneCommand Manager), ensuring the reliability and management of storage network when connected to Brocade Gen 5 FC SAN fabrics.
Figure 1. Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC Single-port and Dual-port HBAs (shown without the included SFP+ modules)
Did you know?
The Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs have an advanced ASIC which can achieve 1.6M IOPS on a single port by using Emulex's Dynamic Multicore architecture, which dynamically scales HBA resources to any port that needs it. This is essential when ports are used in active-standby mode.
The Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs can provide near limitless scalability to support maximum VM density, with 2x more on-chip resources and bandwidth. These low latency HBAs can also improve your VDI experience, providing noticeable improvements during boot storms, and allow faster data warehousing and meet the massive bandwidth requirements of flash storage arrays.
Part number information
The following table lists the ordering information for the Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs.
Part number | Feature code | Description |
---|---|---|
01CV830 | ATZU | Emulex 16Gb Gen6 FC Single-port HBA |
01CV840 | ATZV | Emulex 16Gb Gen6 FC Dual-port HBA |
The part numbers for the Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs include the following items:
- An FC HBA adapter with one or two 16 Gb (16/8/4 Gbps speeds) FC SW SFP+ installed
- 3U (standard) and 2U (low-profile) adapter brackets
- Publications package
Fiber optic cables
The following table lists the fiber optic cables that are available from Lenovo.
Key features
The Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs have the following features:
- Maximum performance with up to 1.6 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) to support larger server virtualization deployments and scalable cloud initiatives, and performance to match new multicore processors, SSDs/flash storage, and faster server host bus architectures.
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Supports Brocade Clearlink diagnostics, which helps ensure optical and signal integrity for Fibre Channel cables and optics by validating the health, reliability and performance of the network prior to, and after, deployment. Allows the IT administrator to detect faulty cables and optics in minutes versus hours. Brocade ClearLink is also seamlessly integrated into Emulex HBA Manager (formerly named Emulex OneCommand Manager).
- Offer end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) application prioritization with ExpressLane technology, which allows customers to prioritize faster storage traffic (such as SSDs) ahead of slower traffic (such as spinning hard drives), alleviating potential bottlenecks from slow storage.
- Frame-level multiplexing and out-of-order frame reassembly increases link efficiency and maximizes HBA performance.
- vScale performance and scalability: Multicore ASIC engine with eight cores supports 255 VFs, 1024 MSI-X, and 16127 logins/open exchanges for maximum VM density.
- The Emulex HBA Manager enterprise class management application features a multiprotocol and cross-platform architecture that provides centralized management of all Emulex HBAs. VMware vCenter plug-in provides HBA Manager support within a VMware environment.
- GreenState power efficiency reduces data center power consumption and associated operational expenses by delivering exceptional power to port ratios.
- End-to-end data protection with hardware parity, CRC, ECC, and other advanced error checking and correcting algorithms, which ensures that data is safe from corruption.
- Support forward error correction (FEC), a new Gen 6 standard feature that provides enhanced data reliability and performance by automatically detecting and recovering from bit errors.
- T10-PI data integrity with high performance offload provides end-to-end data corruption protection.
- Rock-solid reliability and thermal characteristics, which are essential for mission-critical, cloud, and virtualized applications.
- Emulex HBAs are renowned for reliability, ensuring maximum SAN uptime. Their "it just works” reputation is based on 17 million installed ports with proven industry-leading reliability of 10 million hours field Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF).
- Support for Message Signaled Interrupts eXtended (MSI-X) improves host utilization and enhances application performance.
- Support for 16 Gb, 8 Gb, and 4 Gb FC devices.
- Comprehensive virtualization capabilities with support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV).
- A common driver model allows a single driver to support all Emulex HBAs on a given OS.
- Reduces the number of cards, cables, and PCIe slots required.
- Exceptional performance per watt and price/performance ratios.
- Integrates seamlessly into existing SANs.
- Allows application of SAN best practices, tools, and processes with virtual server deployments.
- Ensures data availability and data integrity.
- Universal boot capability allows the appropriate boot environment to be automatically selected for any given hardware.
- Boot from SAN capability reduces the system management costs and increases uptime.
- Detailed and real-time event logging and tracing enables quick diagnosis of SAN problems.
- The beaconing feature flashes the HBA LEDs, simplifying their identification within server racks.
- The environmental monitoring feature helps optimize SAN availability.
The following table compares features of Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6, 16 Gb (Gen 5), and 8 Gb FC HBAs.
Important: Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs offer better performance and scalability with lower power consumption, while fitting into the same price band, compared to Emulex 16 Gb (Gen 5) FC HBAs.
Technical specifications
The Emulex 16 Gb Gen 6 FC HBAs have the following specifications:
- Based on the LPe31000 (single port) and LPe31002 (dual port) adapters
- I/O controller: Emulex Engine 501 (XE501) I/O Controller (IOC)
- Host interface: PCIe 3.0 x8
- Ports: Single-port and dual-port SFP+ based adapters
- Link speed: Support for 16 Gb, 8 Gb and 4 Gb FC link speeds, which are automatically negotiated
- Data rate: 14.025 Gbps (1600 MBps), 8.5 Gbps (800 MBps), and 4.25 Gbps (400 MBps) autosensing (per port), with full duplex
- Performance: Up to 1,600,000 IOPS
- Industry standards:
- Current ANSI/IETF standards: FC-PI-4, FC-PI-5, FC-PI-6 , FC-FS-3, FC-LS-2, FC-GS-6, FC-DA, FC-DA2, FCP-4, SPC-4, SBC-3, and SSC-4
- Legacy ANSI/IETF standards: FC-PH, FC-PH-2, FC-PH-3, FC-PI, FC-PI-2, FC-PI-3, FC-FS, FC-GS-2/3/4/5, FCP-2/3, FC-HBA, FC-TAPE, FC-MI, SPC-3, SBC-2, SSC-2, and SSC-3
- Topology: Point-to-point and switched fabric
- Hot-pluggable 16 Gbps Fibre Channel SFP+ short wave optical transceivers (850 nm) with LC connectors (included with the adapters). Note: Other transceivers are not supported.
- Distance support:
- Operating at 16 Gbps:
- Up to 15 m on 62.5/125 µm OM1 Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)
- Up to 35 m on 50/125 µm OM2 MMF
- Up to 100 m on 50/125 µm OM3 MMF
-
Up to 125 m on 50/125 µm OM4 MMF
- Operating at 8 Gbps:
- Up to 21 m on 62.5/125 µm OM1 MMF
- Up to 50 m on 50/125 µm OM2 MMF
-
Up to 150 m on 50/125 µm OM3 MMF
- Operating at 4 Gbps:
- Up to 70 m on 62.5/125 µm OM1 MMF
- Up to 150 m on 50/125 µm OM2 MMF
- Operating at 16 Gbps:
- Management software:
-
Emulex AutoPilot Installer automates the HBA installation process and reduces time to deployment and administrative costs. Automated installation and configuration of driver and management tools simplifies deployment of multiple adapters within Windows environments. A single installation of driver and management application eliminates multiple reboots and ensures that each component is installed correctly and the HBA is ready to use.
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The Emulex HBA Manager application enables centralized discovery, monitoring, reporting, and administration of Emulex HBAs and CNAs on local and remote hosts. Powerful automation capabilities facilitate remote driver parameter, firmware, and boot code upgrades. In addition to the GUI interface, management functions can also be performed through a scriptable command-line interface (CLI) and a web browser.
- Emulex management instrumentation complies with Open Management Standards, such as SMI-S and common HBA API support, which enables seamless upward integration into enterprise storage and server management solutions.
-
Server support - ThinkSystem
The following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that are compatible.
Server support - System x
The following tables list the System x servers that are compatible.
Support for System x and dense servers with Xeon E5/E7 v4 and E3 v5 processors
Support for System x and dense servers with Intel Xeon v3 processors
Operating system support
The following tables list the supported operating systems for the adapters:
Tip: These tables are automatically generated based on data from Lenovo ServerProven.
1 The OS is not supported with EPYC 7003 processors.
1 The WWPN show wrong when created by excute FC-NPIV test under VM6.5.2 os.
2 [in box driver support only]
3 Please refere LSIC (interop site) for latest Lenovo External Storage support configuration. https://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/ca/en/lsic/
4 Detail information please refer to Support Tip HT506708