QLogic 3200 Series is the Adapter of Choice for Virtualized Environments - Manual (Page 4)

hSG-WP11002 SN0330930-00 rev. a 02/12 4
White PaPer
Optimizing Virtual Environments with VMflex
QLogic’s VMflex technology enables the QLogic 3200 Series intelligent
ethernet adapter to accelerate performance and scalability in VM
environments. VMflex supports hP’s
® Flex-10 and is capable of enabling
alternative OeM proprietary virtualization solutions, such as iBM’s ®
BladeCenter virtual fabric technology. While the OeM versions are switch
dependent, these technologies allow a PCie
® hardware device to appear as
unique, multiple devices.
in addition, QLogic offers a partitioning implementation that is switch
agnostic. NiC Partitioning (NPar) is included within QLogic’s VMflex offering.
NPar provides the highest levels of interoperability within enterprise data
centers.
along with the OeM versions of partitioning, NPar will be covered in more
depth later in this document.
Other features supported by VMflex include edge Virtual Bridging (eVB),
Virtual ethernet Port aggregator (VePa), and VN-tag implementations.
these industry-standard features allow multiple virtual servers to share
a common bridge port, reducing possible i/O bottlenecks, removing virtual
switching activities from the hypervisor to actual physical switches, and
helping to provide better network visibility, end-to-end policy enforcement,
and management scalability within virtualized environments.
advanced technologies like these within QLogic’s VMflex work together to
enhance VM performance, enabling higher virtualization ratios and ensuring
that security and performance requirements are met for large numbers of
virtual servers.
Embedded Layer 2 Ethernet Switching
another advantage of the QLogic intelligent ethernet adapter, provided by
the VMflex feature, is e-switch technology. e-switching offers the ability
to switch internally between VM-to-VM traffic. this is implemented via
an embedded Layer 2 ethernet Switch within the QLogic aSiC and it is
available for all VMs within a physical server. an ethernet message from
one VM to another goes to the QLogic aSiC and is switched back to the
target VM rather than sent externally to the fabric for routing. the results
are reduced latency and faster performance.
the need to improve server platform and i/O connectivity utilization in
virtualized environments has been met by QLogic. VMflex reduces server
i/O connectivity and infrastructure costs and provides dedicated yet flexible
i/O bandwidth for applications while isolating and securing all traffic.
Data center administrators looking for a seamless transition path to address
the challenges of moving from multiple 1Gb ethernet connections
to i/O consolidation on fewer 10Gbe connections need look no further than
the QLogic intelligent ethernet adapter.
Partitioning via HP’s Flex-10 and IBM’s VFA
there are a few OeM implementations similar to Sr-iOV, such as Flex-10
Partitioning from hP and VFa from iBM. While each is supported by QLogic,
they are proprietary standards from each OeM and include support for
OeM-branded switches to be implemented together.
Bridging the gap between Sr-iOV and OeM proprietary implementations is
NPar, which is a switch agnostic solution. NPar is designed to help data
center administrators ease the migration path to deploying consolidated
i/O by providing maximum flexibility for high performance with dedicated
bandwidth access to applications on VMs. in addition, NPar is available
now so it bridges the gap in the absence of Sr-iOV, and it provides a
seamless path to support and deploy Sr-iOV.
Switch Agnostic Partitioning Using NPAR
NPar goes a step beyond the OeM implementations and eliminates the need
for any changes to your existing external ethernet Switch infrastructure.
By implementing partitioning this way, QLogic offers the highest degree of
choice and interoperability. From an OS perspective, there are no changes
required—deployment is seamless. the eight partitions per dual-port
solution (up to four on a single port and eight on a dual port) appear as eight
independent discrete ethernet lanes to the OS. in addition, NPar can help
you implement a virtualized environment by improving server utilization.
NPar supports the division of a single 10Gbe adapter into multiple,
independent partitions. each partition can support concurrent networking
protocols, enabling flexible bandwidth provisioning to applications running
within the VMs. NPar enables the creation of multiple partitions per
physical port. each partition can support independent VLaN creations to
help reduce traffic broadcasting on the network and provide more flexible
administration due to the simple parameter configuration of the switches.
in a typical use case for NPar, a dual-port 10Gb ethernet adapter can be
divided into eight separate virtual connections. each of these can have
a defined bandwidth, which can be associated with the applications and
aligned with corporate SLas. this allows for more adapter interfaces to be
presented to virtual servers using fewer physical adapters. the advantages
are multifold: consolidation of i/O hardware, high i/O performance in
virtualized environments, dedicated bandwidth (QoS) for VMs and associated
applications, the highest level of interoperability, and conservation of PCie
slots. NPar enables the segregated ethernet links to be presented to
VMware eSX
™ as eight separate NiCs. each of the segregated lanes can
then be used for different purposes, such as redundancy, vMotion, VM
kernel consoles, storage, and management interfaces.