Features

The Brocade 16Gb FC Single-port and Dual-port HBAs have the following features:

• 16 Gbps Fibre Channel

  16 Gb FC enables I/O consolidation of multiple 2/4/8 Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs into a single adapter to dramatically reduce CapEx/OpEx costs. It can also provide 50% server rack space savings by reducing from a 2U to 1U rack-mount server with fewer PCIe adapter slots.

• Over 500,000 IOPS per port

  The industry’s most powerful FC adapter that achieves the highest transaction performance to maximize density of VMs per server, performance of 315,000 IOPS for E-mail Exchange, and 205,000 IOPS for SQL Database.

• 16 Gbps and 8 Gbps optical media support

  Investment protection for existing previous-generation 8 Gbps optics.

• Fabric Assigned World Wide Name (FA-WWN)

  FA-WWN virtualizes host WWNs to simplify server deployment by enabling pre-provisioning prior to initial install and to eliminate time-consuming fabric reconfigurations when replacing adapters and servers.

• Boot-From-SAN

  Automate SAN Boot LUN discovery to simplify boot from SAN and reduce image management complexity and support for Direct Attached Storage (DAS point-to-point topology).

• Brocade Server Application Optimization (SAO)

  Quality of Service (QoS) levels assignable to VM applications and support for N_Port Trunking of 2×16 Gbps links into a single logical 32 Gbps link to improve application performance and availability.

• Direct I/O

  This enables native (direct) I/O performance by allowing VMs to bypass the hypervisor and communicate directly with the adapter.

• Brocade Network Advisor

  This simplifies and unifies the management of Brocade adapter, SAN, and LAN resources through a single pane-of-glass.

• Brocade Diagnostics (D-Port)

  This improves detection and isolation of 16 Gbps optics problems between adapters and switches.

• LUN Masking

  Initiator-based LUN masking for storage traffic isolation.

• Target Rate Limiting (TRL)

  This throttles data traffic when accessing slower speed storage targets to avoid back pressure problems.

Technical specifications

The Brocade 16Gb FC Single-port and Dual-port HBAs have the following specifications:

• Host interface: PCI Express Gen 2 x8
• Data rate: 14.025 Gbps (1600 MBps); 8.5 Gbps (800 MBps); 4.25 Gbps (400 MBps); 2.125 Gbps (200 MBps) autosensing (per port); full duplex
• Performance: over 500,000 IOPS per port (1,000,000 IOPS per dual-port adapter)
• Boot support: Boot from SAN, Fabric-based Boot LUN Discovery
• Protocols: SCSI-FCP, FCP-2, FCP-3, FC-SP
• Topology: Point-to-point (N_Port), switched fabric (N_Port)
• N_Port Trunking of 2×16 Gbps links into a single logical 32 Gbps link
• Supported media: Brocade 16 Gbps and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel LC-style pluggable (SFP+), SWL (850 nm), hot-pluggable
• Distance support:
  • 15 m at 16 Gbps on 62.5/125 μm (OM1) Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF)
  • 35 m at 16 Gbps on 50/125 μm OM2 MMF
  • 100 m at 16 Gbps on 50/125 μm OM3 MMF
  • 125 m at 16 Gbps on 50/125 μm OM4 MMF
• Management software:
  • Brocade Host Connectivity Manager (HCM)
  • Brocade Configuration Utility (BCU) Command Line Interface (CLI)
  • Brocade Network Advisor