Storage Area Networks (SAN)

We commissioned Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) to validate the performance of databases running in a virtualized environment. Turns out, 32G NVMe over FC can do a lot for database efficiency and performance.

This report documents the details and results of the performance testing of the NVMe over FC feature of the IBM FlashSystem 9200 array in a VMware and Oracle Database environment. We compared NVMe/FC and SCSI over FC (SCSI/FC) protocols running Emulex Gen 7 32G Fibre Channel (FC) Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) in the server, but also in the storage array; for the storage network switch, we used the IBM b-type Gen 7 solution. 

Here are some of the findings on the IBM FlashSystem 9200 end-to-end 32G NVMe/FC solution with IBM b-type storage networking:

• Delivered 83% more Oracle OLTP transactions per minute and 79% higher throughput in a VMware ESXi 7.0 environment compared with 32G SCSI/FC technology.
• Provided up to 31% more performance per CPU core for Oracle databases.
• Have leveraged the FPIN specification to automatically find and fix SAN congestion problems.
• Can help organizations easily and non-disruptively perform app migrations from SCSI/FC to NVMe/FC-based storage.

Read the ESG Technical Validation Paper for more details on the solution, the deployment environment, the metrics and the why the metrics matter. ESG-Technical-Validation-Broadcom-IBM-End-to-End-NVMe-Jan-2021.pdf
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