Abstract

Dell commissioned Tolly to evaluate the integrated capabilities of a 64G Fibre Channel enterprise storage solution built around Dell PowerEdge 17th Generation servers, Marvell QLogic 64G FC host bus adapters, Dell Connectrix MDS 9700 Enterprise Directors manufactured by Cisco Systems, and Dell PowerMax 8500 storage. The main focus of the project was to validate the “better together” benefits of this combined architecture, specifically end-to-end interoperability, automated resilience, and congestion-management behavior in a realistic multipath SAN environment.  

The test environment modeled a mission-critical 64G SAN using a Dell PowerEdge R760 server running RHEL 9.6, a dual-port Marvell QLogic QLE2872C 64G FC HBA, dual Dell Connectrix MDS 9710 and 9718 Enterprise Directors running NX-OS 9.4(3b), and a Dell PowerMax 8500 array with two active 64G FC ports. The server used multipath I/O, with each HBA port connected to a different director and the storage array also attached redundantly across the same logical fabric. Tolly verified seamless interoperability, including automatic link-speed negotiation at 64G, automatic LUN discovery, and correct multipath operation without manual intervention. The solution also supported Fabric Performance Impact Notification frames across the fabric, enabling standards-based congestion signaling between the directors and the HBA.  

Resilience testing showed uninterrupted traffic through multiple fault scenarios. When an HBA-connected port was disabled, traffic continued over the remaining path, and the restored port automatically rejoined service. Marvell’s dual-port architecture also demonstrated port isolation: removing one PCIe function at the Linux kernel level did not affect the other port. Across the SAN fabric, traffic continued without disruption when one inter-director port-channel link was disabled and also when one director power supply was taken offline. On the storage side, both PowerMax ports were active simultaneously, and disabling one port caused traffic to continue over the remaining active path with no downtime.  

Tolly also validated advanced congestion control. Using Marvell QLogic Universal SAN Congestion Management with Cisco FPIN notifications, the environment dynamically reassigned traffic into virtual lanes and automatically throttled oversubscribed traffic to below 50% of wire speed until congestion cleared, then restored normal traffic flow. Overall, the report presents the Dell-Marvell-Cisco 64G FC solution as a unified enterprise SAN platform that combines seamless interoperability, automated high availability, and intelligent congestion management for mission-critical workloads.