Full hardware storage offloads
The Emulex VFA5.2 adapters support a hardware offload engine (optionally enabled via Features on
Demand upgrade, standard on 00AG580 and 01CV770). This accelerates storage protocol
processing, which enables the server’s processing resources to focus on application workloads,
thus improving the server’s performance.
Advanced RDMA capabilities with RoCE v2
RDMA over Converged Ethernet v2 (RoCE v2) delivers application and storage acceleration through
faster I/O operations with support for Windows Server SMB Direct and Linux NFS protocols.
The XE100-P2 controllers leverage RoCE v2, enabling server-to-server data movement directly
between application memory without any CPU involvement. This provides high throughput and data
acceleration on a standard Ethernet fabric, without the need for specialized infrastructure or
management.
The XE100-P2 controllers support the new InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) RoCE v2
specification for Layer 3 routing.
RoCE also helps accelerate workloads in the following ways:
Capability to deliver a 4x boost in small packet network performance vs. previous generation
adapters, which is critical for transaction-heavy workloads
Desktop-like experiences for VDI with up to 1.5 million FCoE or iSCSI I/O operations per
second (IOPS)
Ability to scale Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint using SMB Direct
optimized with RoCE
More VDI desktops/server due to up to 18% higher CPU effectiveness (the percentage of
server CPU utilization for every 1 Mbps I/O throughput)
Superior application performance for VMware hybrid cloud workloads, with up to 129%
higher I/O throughput compared to adapters without offload
Specifications
Adapter specifications:
Dual-channel 10 Gbps Ethernet controller
Based on the Emulex XE102-P2 ASIC
PCI Express 3.0 host interface
Line-rate 10 GbE performance
Upgradeable to support converged networking (FCoE and iSCSI) through Features on Demand
2 SFP+ empty cages to support either SFP+ SR or twin-ax copper connections
SFP+ SR link is with the SFP+ SR optical module with LC connectors.
SFP+ twin-ax copper link is with the SFP+ direct attached copper module/cable.
Power dissipation: 14.4 W typical
Form factor:
Mezzanine LOM (ML2) form factor (adapters 00AG560 and 01CV770)
PCIe low-profile form factor (adapters 00AG570 and 00AG580)
Emulex VFA5.2 Adapter Family for System x
5
