Abstract

As the consolidation of server environments through virtualization becomes more prevalent, the need for Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) will increase as well. Providing access to network resources and data storage over a single, highly- available, high-speed interface, a converged network adapter (CNA), allows network architects to reduce overhead in the datacenter through reducing switch port count and related infrastructure costs. Using a CNA also eliminates the need to buy, maintain and manage separate adapters for server storage and network connectivity. QLogic notes that its CNAs are designed for adaptive convergence, scalability and to minimize the use of the host processor thus allowing higher VM density for the server. QLogic Corp. commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance and CPU efficiency of the QLE8242 CNA handling both 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE traffic).

Tolly engineers measured the performance and host CPU consumption of QLogic Corporation’s QLE8242 Converged Network Adapter handling both 10GbE and FCoE traffic in a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 environment.