QLogic Extends Leadership Role in Further Accelerating Adoption of NVM Express over Fabrics for Fibre Channel and Ethernet

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Aug. 08, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, QLogic^® extended its industry leadership in high-performance interconnect technology by providing customers with the ability to support NVM Express® (NVMe™) over Fabrics utilizing both Fibre Channel (FC) and Ethernet networks, the two dominant interconnects in modern data centers. Having been the first to demonstrate NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) using FC in December 2015, QLogic is strengthening its leadership position by demonstrating NVMe-oF for both FC and Ethernet this week at Flash Memory Summit, August 9-11, 2016. The live end-to-end NVMe-oF with FC demonstration will be showcased in the SANBlaze booth 848, while the NVMe-oF with Ethernet solution will be featured in the 2550100 Alliance NVMe Solutions Lab in Hall D. Both demonstrations will also be showcased in the QLogic booth 879 at Intel Developer Forum 2016 (IDF 16), August 16-18, 2016.

"The upcoming demonstrations at Flash Memory Summit and IDF 16 further underscore our leadership position and commitment to NVMe-oF as QLogic spearheads ecosystem development and extends the technology to the two primary interconnects in the data center, FC and Ethernet," said Vikram Karvat, vice president of products, marketing and planning, QLogic. "With NVMe gaining momentum for low-latency flash-based storage, QLogic is driving NVMe-oF standards, including the FC binding specification called FC-NVMe in the INCITS T11 committee, giving customers the ultimate in protocol choice and extending the utility of their primary data center interconnect investments."

The live end-to-end NVMe-oF with FC demonstration running on the new QLogic Gen 6 (32Gb) FC Adapters shows how this solution:

• Extends the reliability, availability and performance of FC for next-generation storage
• Results in 59 percent reduction in latency and 3 times higher IOPS compared to previous generation FC
• Leverages existing FC investments, eliminating the need for rip and replace upgrades
• Is ideal for high-performance databases, data mining and Virtual Desktop and Virtual Server Infrastructure (VDI and VSI)

"NVMe-oF with FC is not only spearheading innovation, but further enhances the value of FC for existing users, ensuring investment protection and access to the latest flash memory technology over the most proven storage network," said Vince Asbridge, president, SANBlaze Technology, Inc. "The joint NVMe-oF with FC demonstration leveraging SANBlaze NVMe target emulation devices supports hundreds of NVMe drives, multiple configurable namespaces, a flexible GUI configuration and an XML API for automated testing."

The live end-to-end NVMe-oF with Ethernet demonstration showcases the benefits of QLogic's latest FastLinQ^™ 25Gb Ethernet (25GbE) Adapters with RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) shows how this solution:

• Extends NVMe over a large-scale Ethernet-based network using the efficiency and performance of RDMA
• Results in a 77 percent reduction in latency when compared side-by-side with iSCSI
• Accelerates the adoption and increases the benefits of deploying technologies such as scale-out storage, software-defined storage and hyperconverged infrastructure

Supporting Quotes

"NVMe will be the next disruptive storage networking technology in the data center and customers will continue to rely on Fibre Channel for mission-critical applications and data," said Jack Rondoni, vice president of storage networking, Brocade. "Brocade has been a key contributor to the ecosystem development and editor of the T11 FC-NVMe architecture. With the introduction of FC-NVMe being critical to the evolution of the data center, Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel will play a vital role in connecting flash-based devices."

"We forecast that both 32Gb Fibre Channel and 25Gb Ethernet Adapters will see very strong adoption ramps with each exceeding one-hundred percent average annual shipment growth rates over the next four years," said Seamus Crehan, president, Crehan Research. "QLogic is further enhancing the value proposition of both of these technologies by enabling them for NVMe over Fabrics which will allow customers to build higher performing networks for flash-based systems."

"NVMe over Fabrics extends the distance over which NVMe storage solutions may be deployed and the number of NVMe devices supported," said Dennis Martin, president, Demartek. "QLogic gives users the choice of using the newest generations of 25Gb RDMA Ethernet or Gen 6 (32Gb) Fibre Channel technology to carry potentially very large volumes of low-latency NVMe traffic."

"Organizations are already enjoying substantial benefits from solid-state storage, including increased performance, improved utilization, and lower TCO. Now, NVMe is increasing those benefits by further reducing latencies. And, QLogic's technology is extending the capabilities of NVMe to existing FC infrastructures, increasing the applicability of the technology and reducing infrastructure costs," said Scott Sinclair, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc.

"The storage market based on non-volatile memory is about to undergo a major technology refresh led by NVDIMM, NVMe SSD and NVMe over fabrics," said Frank Berry, analyst and founder, IT Brand Pulse. "QLogic is at the forefront of connectivity for a new generation of all flash arrays with support for both NVMe-oF with FC, and NVMe-oF with Ethernet RDMA."

"The NVM Express organization is pleased to see further demonstrations from QLogic of NVMe over Fabrics – this time with Ethernet, in addition to their first demonstration using Fibre Channel," said J Metz, Board member of NVM Express, Inc. and the Fibre Channel Industry Association. "Ecosystem development and fabric choice are imperative to extending NVMe storage connectivity, which will significantly reduce latency needed for today's monster applications."

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QLogic – the Ultimate in Performance
QLogic QLGC is a global leader and technology innovator in high performance server and storage networking connectivity products. Leading OEMs and channel partners worldwide rely on QLogic for their server and storage networking solutions. For more information, visit www.qlogic.com.

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