This paper describes the move to 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel, the benefits and the
major applications that will benefit from this newest interconnect technology.
4 Gb/s Fibre Channel
Storage System
The IBM®
TotalStorage®
DS4800 controller,
features sixth
generation system
technology and offers
the same extensive
capabilities and
functionality as other
IBM DS4000 series
Fibre Channel
systems. These
capabilities include
broad support for
operating systems and
host types; advanced
replication services
such as Snapshot,
remote volume
mirroring and volume
copying.
Introduction
Since the 2001 introduction of 2 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) Fibre Channel
(FC) technology, engineers have been working on the next generation of
Fibre Channel interconnection – 4 Gb/s. The new technology is now
available, thoroughly tested and offered to enterprise customers.
4 Gb/s Fibre Channel systems are ideally suited for applications that need
to quickly transfer large amounts of data – such as remote replication
across a SAN, database in memory; streaming video on demand; medical
imaging; data mining and data warehousing; and large databases
supporting online transaction processing (OLTP). Additionally, large
increases in online data, such as driven by radio frequency identification
(RFID) applications, will leverage the benefits of 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel
technology.
Why buy 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology?
The potential benefits of 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology include
between servers and storage devices
to server or restore data from online backup media; high reliability due to the number of
connections; and investment protection due to backward compatibility with 1 Gb/s and 2
Gb/s components – providing customers with state-of-the-art interconnection technology
at about the same price and cost of ownership as current 2 Gb/s systems.
Some of the Killer Apps for 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel
The information explosion continues to drive the need for higher-performance
communication. Performance improvements in processors, workstations and storage
devices, along with the exponential growth in the amount of data being gathered and
created, have spawned increasingly data-intensive and high-speed networking
applications. 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel enables faster communication between servers and
storage devices at about the same prices as today’s 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel, helping IT
, the ability to more rapidly transfer data from storage
faster communication
administrators to effectively address the relentless needs of applications and end users.
Tiered Storage
As the concept of storage tiers becomes more prevalent and implementations become
more common, data will need to be routinely migrated from primary storage to secondary
storage across the storage network. Depending on the amount of data being relocated, this
can be a time-consuming and costly process that can put a tremendous strain on the
storage network and potentially disrupt access to the data during the migration. 4 Gb/s
Fibre Channel provides a massive pipe through the SAN that allows data to be quickly
moved from one storage system to another - enabling this bandwidth-intensive transfer to
happen at up to twice the speed of 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel.
Campus area replication
While wide area network (WAN) replication can help provide outstanding protection
against regional disasters, campus area replication can be just as beneficial. When
replicating across the high-speed SAN, data can be mirrored synchronously, so the
remote site has the same data as the local site at all times. The data at the remote site can
then be used for a variety of purposes, such as data restoration, mining, analysis, testing
and backup. Synchronizing and re-synchronizing the local and remote sites can be a
lengthy process that monopolizes a large portion of the SAN's bandwidth. 4 Gb/s Fibre
Channel provides these environments with a high-bandwidth infrastructure well suited for
campus area replication.
4 Gb/s Fibre Channel enables data to be transferred from one system at up to twice the
speed of 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel.
Streaming Video
4 Gb/s Fibre Channel is ideal for world-class broadcasting and rich media storage
networks. Large block, sequential I/O applications that include content creation and
delivery, modeling, rendering, and publishing, may benefit from the additional bandwidth
that 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel provides.
Large Data Analysis
A 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel storage network can help companies accelerate and scale
simulation, visualization, modeling and rendering applications simply and easily to help:
• Tremendously accelerate large dataset I/O rates;
• Share information across the organization for the highest level of collaboration;
• Enable shared file systems, via 3rd parties, to scale to higher levels of
performance ;
• Simplify data management and consolidation to allow managing up to 90
terabytes, behind a single pair of controllers
Database in Memory
Customers running this emerging application need to have very large datasets in memory.
Loading or refreshing these from disks becomes a time-critical effort. Large Linux™
clusters are an example of this type of computing complex, where loading as much as
12TB of memory from disk storage in less than seven minutes can be the requirement. 4
Gb/s storage systems can be used effectively for this demanding application as data can
be loaded from the storage to the server in as little as half the time compared to 2 Gb/s
Fibre Channel.
Quick Recovery
Recovery is more important than backup, and the time it takes to recover is becoming
more important every day. Systems based on 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology are
designed to deliver the high bandwidth performance required to enable short recovery
time and high productivity.
Data Warehousing
Data warehousing presents a unique challenge for storage systems because both high
bandwidth and high random I/O performance are required for effective solutions. The
balanced performance of systems based on 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology helps
address this challenge. They offer high levels of performance in both the bandwidth and
IOPS dimensions.
Transitioning from 2 Gb/s to 4 Gb/s
According to a 2003 IDC report, 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel accounted for only six percent of
the market in 2001, but by the end of 2002 2 Gb/s represented 70 percent of the market.
IDC also predicted that by December 2003, 1 Gb/s technology would no longer be sold.
The transition from 1 Gb/s to 2 Gb/s was simple and fast because it offered backward
compatibility, no infrastructure change, and pricing was equal. The adoption of 4 Gb/s
technology may follow a similar pattern, and offer backward compatibility, no
infrastructure changes, and equal pricing. Since the industry has made this type of
transition before, the transition to 4 Gb/s may be even faster. Four Gigabit per second
Fibre Channel may be the dominant host interconnection for storage systems by
December 2006.
Deciding when to upgrade to 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel
Deciding when to upgrade your infrastructure involves many factors. Customers need to
evaluate if their current IT environment is stable, performing adequately and if growth
has stabilized. If the answer to these questions is yes, then an infrastructure upgrade is
probably not needed immediately.
However, those customers who answered “no” will probably want to consider 4 Gb/s
technology when determining if the current rate of growth will overtake the current
infrastructure, if new applications and solutions require higher performance levels and if
bottlenecks in the current storage environment are preventing realization storage network
potential.
Customers must also evaluate future purchases of host bus adapters (HBAs), servers, and
storage devices in the SAN that will inevitably be based on 4 Gb/s technology. While
these offerings will likely be backwards compatible, in order for the SAN infrastructure
to meet its full potential and optimize performance, the full data path should be based on
4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology.
Once the decision to upgrade has been made, the transition can take place quickly.
Products are already being released based on 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel and as storage
products continue to evolve, many will be designed based on 4 Gb/s standards.
Storage vendors know that customers rarely replace their entire infrastructure at once. As
a result, 4 Gb/s may be introduced into customer environments in phases until 4 Gb/s
Fibre Channel has a larger presence in the storage network than 2 Gb/s.
Additional factors driving the decision to purchase 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology
today
A few years ago, products were rotated out of production every three years. Today,
companies are extending the life of these products to four years or more. This means that
products purchased in 2005 may still be in production when 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel is the
norm. Does it make sense to purchase a new product that will be “outdated” before its
production life is up?
Purchasing a product based on 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology can provide the best of
both worlds. 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel’s backwards compatibility enables it to be integrated
into existing 1 Gb/s and 2 Gb/s infrastructures. This allows users to immediately benefit
from any improved functionality in their new 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel products, helps
provide them with investment protection of their current environments, and provide
future protection when their infrastructure eventually makes the transition to 4 Gb/s.
The value proposition for end-users is simple – equal cost; up to twice the throughput;
helps protect investment; and less SAN infrastructure (fewer switches with fewer ports,
fewer host bus adapters) helps increase SAN reliability, availability and serviceability
(RAS).
Conclusion
Many industry analysts, customers and manufacturers agree that by the end of 2006, 4
Gb/s Fibre Channel technology will be widely adopted by organizations around the
world. Four Gb/s Fibre Channel is backwards compatible, provides customers with stateof-the-art interconnection technology at the same price and cost of ownership as current 2
Gb/s systems.
Four Gb/s technology can benefit companies that run a variety of applications including
scientific research, data warehousing and analysis, video on demand, and large databases.
Customers considering new storage components, expanding or upgrading their current 2
Gb/s infrastructure, experiencing relentless growth, or demanding the highest levels of
performance, should carefully evaluate new 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel technology.
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