Fiber Channel
Fiber Channel (FC) attached storage is
commonly connected to the server via Lucent connectors (LCs) embedded within a
small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optical adapter, such as a PCI host bus
adapter (HBA). HBAs have throughput ratings of up to 4 Gbps and have become
reasonably priced to implement in the data center.
FC HBAs are manufactured to
support either 32-bit architectures, 64-bit architectures, or both, when
interfacing with the PCI bus. This allows application performance to take
advantage of a combination of an operating system and processor that may already
be 64-bit enabled. If a server is already operating in 64-bit mode, it is
advised to implement FC with a 64-bit-capable adapter as well.
FC HBAs are commonly supported by
operating systems such as Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Linux, and Sun
Solaris. Furthermore, FC HBAs generally support direct connection to a disk
subsystem (DAS) or to a Fibre Channel fabric (SAN) to access a provisioned
portion of a shared array. Interestingly enough, SCSI command sets are most
commonly used on top of FC interconnect.
Figure 2-18 examines how current-generation storage
interconnect compares to legacy storage interconnect. This table clearly
articulates the performance differences that can be found with newer-generation
technology.
Along with examining aspects such as CPU subsystem, memory
subsystem, and storage interconnect, the file system configuration should also
be examined for its impact on application performance.
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