HP 2G Guide

April 2004
Table of Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3
PCI-X 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet Performance Test Results .................... 5
Throughput ............................................................................................................... 6
GigE Traffic Alone Compared to GigE Traffic in Conjunction with FC Bidirectional .......... 6
FC Traffic Alone Compared to FC Traffic in Conjunction with GigE Bidirectional ............. 9
Performance Highlights ............................................................................................ 12
Suggested Use ........................................................................................................ 12
Achieving Best Performance and High Availability .................................................... 12
Test Details ............................................................................................................. 15
Test Details: Products Used in Testing ...................................................................... 15
Test Details: Test Configuration ............................................................................... 16
Additional Information ............................................................................................. 17
Taking the Next Step ............................................................................................... 17
Legal Notices .......................................................................................................... 18
PCI-X 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet
Performance
Using the HP rp8400 Server with Server Expansion Unit

Introduction
3
Introduction
This article highlights the superb performance and high availability demonstrated when you
install HP’s new PCI-X multi-function 2 Gbit/s Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet adapters
in HP’s award-winning midrange rp8400 servers with Server Expansion Units (SEU). The
new A9782A adapter (with fiber-based GigE) and the A9784A adapter (with copper-based
GigE) provide the following benefits:
•A single adapter combining 2 Gbit/s Fibre Channel mass storage connectivity and
1000Base-SX or Base-T Gigabit Ethernet networking connectivity.
•Higher port density for I/O slot–constrained systems.
•Higher levels of failover protection, because two multi-function adapters have no single
point of failure. The same level of failover protection would require four single-port I/O
adapters (2 Fibre Channel and 2 Gigabit Ethernet) that would consume twice the
number of I/O slots.
The adapters also fully support HP Serviceguard and PCI-X/PCI online addition and
replacement (OLAR).
•PCI-X I/O adapters that are fully backward compatible with PCI 2.2 I/O slots.
•Flexibility for implementing Virtual Partition (vPars) configurations.
Figure 1 HP PCI-X 2 Gbit/s Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet
Multi-Function Adapter (A9782A shown)

Introduction
4
Both the A9782A and A9784A adapters offer the same level of performance and are
designed with the following advanced features.
The Fibre Channel port in each adapter:
•runs at either 200 MB/s half-duplex or 400 MB/s full duplex data rates.
•provides boot / dump support and auto speed sensing.
•supports 2 to 200 meter LC-to-LC duplex multimode fibre-optic cable and of course
LC-to-SC conversion cables.
•scales up to 16 million SAN nodes.
•operates in full switched fabric Fibre Channel (FC-SW) or FC-AL-2, FC-FLA, FC-PLDA,
and FC-PI architectures.
The Gigabit Ethernet port in each adapter:
•maximizes server CPU efficiency and increases performance through TCP,UDP, and IP
checksum protocol off loading.
•increases network flexibility through support for virtual LANs (VLANs).
•increases throughput through use of HP auto port aggregation (APA) or
•improves reliability and failover through the LAN Monitor capability of HP APA.
•is available in a choice of either a 1000 Base-SX version using multi-mode fiber
supporting distances of up to 550m or a 1000Base-T version using CAT5 or better UTP
cable supporting distances of up to 100m.
HP rp8400 servers with Server Expansion Units (SEU) like the one used in this
demonstration are highly dependable, adaptable, and efficient midrange servers for the
data center. The results in this paper show that the A9782A and A9784A adapters installed
in a server expansion unit like the one on the rp8400 increase your server and data
network efficiency while lowering your total cost of ownership.

PCI-X 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet Performance Test Results
5
PCI-X 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet
Performance Test Results
The Gigabit Ethernet port performance on the A9782A and A9784A was measured with
the following traffic types:
•Transmit (Tx) using netperf with socket size of 128K bytes and message size of 32K
bytes
•Receive (Rx) using netperf with socket size of 128K bytes and message size of 32K bytes
•Bidirectional (BD) running the Tx and Rx tests concurrently
The Fibre Channel port performance on the A9782A and A9784A was measured with the
following traffic types:
•Read (Rd) using diskbench with block size of 128K bytes
•Write (Wr) using diskbench with block size of 128K bytes
•Bidirectional (BD) running the Rd and Wr tests concurrently
The following charts show the overall performance of one PCI-X multi-function 2 Gigabit
Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet adapter in each 1, 2, or 4-cell, 16-way rp8400 with
Server Expansion Unit (SEU). In the enclosed charts:
•the Gigabit Ethernet throughput numbers are shown in Megabits per second, and
•the Fibre Channel throughput numbers are shown in Megabytes per second.
For each measured traffic type (for example, GigE Tx), the results for that traffic type are
shown alongside a comparison of that traffic type when running in conjunction with the
adjacent port running in bidirectional mode (for example, GigE Tx plus Fibre Channel
bidirectional). These comparisons basically show a single port compared to both ports
operating at the same time. The results of PCI-66 testing are also described though not
shown in graphs.
The following charts can be used to compare performance when 1, 2, and 4 cells are
configured per partition.

Throughput
6
Throughput
GigE Traffic Alone Compared to GigE Traffic in Conjunction with FC
Bidirectional
Figure 2 PCI-X GigE Rx Performance Compared to: Rx + FC BD
Figure 2 shows PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Receive (Rx) performance. With 1, 2, or 4 cells
configured, the following throughput rates were achieved:
•Receive throughput on the GigE port with no Fiber channel traffic on a 1 cell partition is
an excellent 929 Mbits/sec. As the partition size is increased by adding up to 3 more
cells, receive throughput shows no significant drop in performance. A similar pattern
emerges when GigE receive and FC bidirectional are combined. GigE receive
throughput is 837 Mbits/sec with no significant change as partition size is increased.
•When tested in a PCI-66 slot, the performance results for receive only throughput are
identical to PCI-X performance. When GigE receive and FC bidirectional traffic are
combined, PCI-66 performance is 585 Mbits/sec with no significant change as
partition size increases. The decreased performance seen when both ports are active on
the A9782A/A9784A is a result of the bandwidth limitation of the PCI-66 technology
and is not due to a limitation in the adapter.
929 924
837
921
830
837
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Rx Rx + FC BD
Mbits/sec
1 Cell
2 Cells
4 Cells

Throughput
7
Figure 3 PCI-X GigE Tx Performance Compared to: Tx + FC BD
Figure 3 shows PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Transmit (Tx) performance. With 1, 2, or 4 cells
configured, the following throughput rates were achieved:
•Transmit throughput on the GigE port with no Fiber channel traffic on a 1 cell partition is
900 Mbits/sec. As the partition size is increased by adding up to 3 additional cells,
transmit throughput decreases to 868 Mbits/sec.
A similar pattern emerges when GigE transmit and FC bidirectional are combined.
GigE transmit throughput is 700 Mbits/sec on a 1 cell partition and decreases to 638
Mbits/sec as partition size is increased to 4 cells.
•When tested in a PCI-66 slot, the performance results for transmit only throughput
showed no decrease in performance when compared to PCI-X. When GigE transmit
and FC bidirectional traffic are combined, PCI-66 performance is 440 Mbits/sec with
no significant change as partition size increases. The decreased performance seen
when both ports are active on the A9782A/A9784A is a result of the bandwidth
limitation of the PCI-66 technology and is not due to a limitation in the adapter.
890
658
868
638
900
700
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Tx Tx + FC BD
Mbits/sec
1 Cell
2 Cells
4 Cells

Throughput
8
Figure 4 PCI-X GigE BD Performance Compared to: BD + FC BD
Figure 4 shows PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet Bidirectional (BD) performance. With 1, 2, or 4
cells configured, the following throughput rates were achieved:
•Bidirectional throughput on the GigE port with no Fiber channel traffic on a 1 cell
partition is 1250 Mbits/sec. As the partition size is increased by adding up to 3 more
cells, bidirectional throughput decreases to 1175 Mbits/sec. A similar pattern emerges
when GigE bidirectional and FC bidirectional are combined. GigE bidirectional
throughput is 884 Mbits/sec on a 1 cell partition and decreases to 865 Mbits/sec as
partition size is increased to 4 cells. You see a more significant decrease on the
A9782A/A9784A when both ports are active due to the inherent bandwidth limitations
of the PCI-X technology when both links are carrying full bidirectional traffic.
•When tested in a PCI-66 slot the performance results for bidirectional only throughput
showed no decrease in performance when compared to PCI-X. When GigE
bidirectional and FC bidirectional traffic are combined, PCI-66 performance is 592
Mbits/sec with no significant change as partition size increases. The decreased
performance seen when both ports are active on the A9782A/A9784A is a result of the
bandwidth limitation of the PCI-66 technology and is not due to a limitation in the
adapter.
884
1206
881 865
1250 1175
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
BD BD + FC BD
Mbits/sec
1 Cell
2 Cells
4 Cells

Throughput
9
FC Traffic Alone Compared to FC Traffic in Conjunction with GigE
Bidirectional
Figure 5 PCI-X Fibre Channel Read Performance
Figure 5 shows PCI-X Fibre Channel Read (Rd) performance. With 1, 2, or 4 cells
configured, the following throughput rates were achieved:
•Read throughput on the FC port with no GigE traffic on a 1 cell partition is an excellent
191 MBytes/sec. As the partition size is increased by adding up to 3 more cells, read
throughput shows no drop in performance. A similar pattern emerges when FC read
and GigE bidirectional are combined. FC read throughput is 191 MBytes/sec with no
change as partition size is increased.
•When tested in a PCI-66 slot, the performance results for read only throughput are
identical to PCI-X performance. When FC read and GigE bidirectional traffic are
combined, PCI-66 performance is 157 MBytes/sec with no change as partition size
increases.
191 191191 191 191 191
0
50
100
150
200
250
Rd Rd + GigE BD
MBytes/sec
1 Cell
2 Cells
4 Cells

Throughput
10
Figure 6 PCI-X Fibre Channel Write Performance
Figure 6 shows PCI-X Fibre Channel Write (Wr) performance. With 1, 2, or 4 cells
configured, the following throughput rates were achieved:
•Write throughput on the FC port with no GigE traffic on a 1 cell partition is an excellent
184 MBytes/sec. As the partition size is increased by adding up to 3 more cells, write
throughput decreases to 168 MBytes/sec. A similar pattern emerges when FC write and
GigE bidirectional are combined. FC write throughput is 160 MBytes/sec on a 1 cell
partition and decreases to 143 MBytes/sec as partition size is increased to 4 cells.
•When tested in a PCI-66 slot, the performance results for write only throughput showed
no decrease in performance when compared to PCI-X. When FC write and GigE
bidirectional traffic are combined, PCI-66 performance is 117 MBytes/sec. As you
increase the partition size by adding up to 3 more cells, write throughput decreases to
90 MBytes/sec. The decreased performance seen when both ports are active on the
A9782A/A9784A is a result of the bandwidth limitation of the PCI-66 technology and
is not due to a limitation in the adapter.
184
160
169
145
168
143
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Wr Wr + GigE BD
MBytes/sec
1 Cell
2 Cells
4 Cells