32Gb FC blade fabric: the force that propels composable infrastructure

[StorageExperts]

With increasing server virtualization and all-flash NVMe storage developments, the fabric is being upgraded to next-gen 32Gb infrastructure to address performance demands of today’s bandwidth-hungry applications. HPE Synergy composable fabric now provides an upgrade path for your fabric with interconnect options for 32Gb Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure.

A few years ago, Gartner came out with the idea of BiModal IT where an organization manages two separate styles of IT-related workloads. Mode 1 is traditional data center IT, and Mode 2 is an agile environment catering to digital transformation. While the jury is still out on Gartner’s Bi-Modal IT theory, we are increasingly seeing customers adopt Multimodal IT, where traditional, software-defined, and cloud infrastructure coexist. The objective is to synchronize all IT resources optimally to create a harmonic IT composition. Composable infrastructure addresses the challenge of multi-modal computing environments through compatibility with traditional applications as well as cloud-native applications.

With HPE Synergy, you can provision software-defined, on-premises infrastructure on the fly as quickly as public cloud—while maintaining physical, virtual, and container-based workloads in the same environment with unified manageability. To make this happen, the infrastructure components—compute and storage—play the foundational role. The fabric network acts as the binder the strength of which delivers the utilization of resources and eventually the application performance you demand. Considering that the Fibre Channel fabric network remains dominant in the data center infrastructure, HPE Synergy provides fabric interconnects to the ubiquitous Fibre Channel SAN utilizing the HPE Fibre Channel interconnect module. With increasing server virtualization and all-flash NVMe storage developments, the fabric is being upgraded to next-gen 32Gb infrastructure to address performance demands of today’s bandwidth-hungry applications. HPE Synergy composable fabric now provides  an upgrade path for fabric with interconnect options for 32Gb Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure.

Introducing HPE 32Gb Fibre Channel SAN switch module for HPE Synergy

The HPE 32Gb Fibre Channel SAN Switch Module for HPE Synergy represents a composable and integrated Fibre Channel interconnect module with Gen6 technology that simplifies integration of the HPE Synergy frame into a Storage Area Network (SAN).

This new SAN switch module accelerates performance and service delivery with a higher switching bandwidth of 896 Gbps to support high-density virtualization and demanding workloads. A higher throughput of 512 Gbps owing to 32Gb links will provide improved application performance and help maintain stringent SLAs. It provides unified manageability through advanced web tools which simplify fabric set-up and on-going maintenance for SAN administrators. 

HPE 32Gb FC Switch for HPE Synergy provides open management by integrating with REST APIs. It also supports HPE PowerPack+ software bundle for advanced monitoring, diagnostics and analytics around application performance and operational stability. IO Insight capability gathers IO statistics from any device port, which then feeds a monitoring policy that measures thresholds and generates alerts. Additional features such as Integrated application and device level IO latency and IOPS give customers peace of mind with application performance benchmarking and degraded performance detection. Simply put, HPE 32Gb SAN Switch module for HPE synergy provides better operational efficiency and flexibility for rack scaled topologies. It is like having a top-of-rack switch built into a rack and multi-frame environment with shared power and cooling, fewer cables, optics, less space while consuming ~50% less power than previous generations – all the reasons customers choose these environments.

Last, but certainly not least, HPE 32Gb FC Switch for HPE Synergy is NVMe-over-fabric ready to provide next-gen connectivity without any disruptive upgrades today. It provides a scalable 28-port switch (12 internal and 16 external 32Gb ports) with flexible port-on-demand upgrades to address surging application demands. It is the ideal solution for enterprises planning to deploy 32Gb FC to meet the growing bandwidth demands of applications utilizing all-flash Storage arrays (AFA) and for customers looking to deploy scalable private cloud storage networks using HPE Synergy.

HPE Synergy is a simple and flexible software-defined platform—with a fabric that scales and adapts to meet your workload needs today and tomorrow

Talk to your HPE representative about HPE Synergy and the HPE 32Gb FC SAN switch module for HPE Synergy for your Multimodal IT.

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Meet Around the Storage Block blogger Ankit Jain, Lead Product Manager, HPE Storage.

Storage Experts
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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