C A S E S T U D Y
NetBank
QLogic HBAs Reap Returns for
Home Mortgage Lender NetBank
Challenge
The IT department of NetBank managed a growing storage
area network (SAN) with multiple operating systems and
hardware platforms to provide reliable 24/7 access to mission-
critical applications—while also helping secure compliance
with Federal regulatory reporting requirements. The time
challenge that faces most IT departments is no different at
NetBank. There is a need for SAN equipment that is quick and
easy to set up and once installed, just works.
Solution
A 110TB SAN composed of over 100 Fibre Channel 4Gbps
HP StorageWorks
®
FC1143 HBAs from Hewlett-Packard
(manufactured by QLogic as the QLA2460); HP EVA8000
storage arrays; HP ProLiant
®
DL and HP BladeSystem servers
with QLogic Mezzanine Cards running VMware
®
ESX Server
®
virtualization software as well as the Linux
®
and Microsoft
®
Windows
®
operating systems.
Result
QLogic HBAs provide high performance and reliable connections
within the heterogeneous SAN, which gives users uninterrupted
access critical to key banking operations such as mortgage
loan processing and data management for compliance with
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision
reporting requirements. Their reliability also helps provide for
reliable access to e-mail and other corporate functions.
“The QLogic HBAs provide our employees with uninterrupted access to data for
their work, including staying abreast of regulatory compliance requirements and
providing cutting-edge services to our customers.”
— Jeffrey Flowers, Manager of Systems Engineering and
Storage Administrator, NetBank
Data storage requirements for financial institutions are daunting: homeowner
mortgage information management, e-mail archiving, record-keeping, and data
retention for federal reporting requirements. IT managers are constantly challenged
to provide a storage infrastructure that delivers continuous and prompt access to
mission-critical data.
Fibre Channel HBAs are a critical component to providing the connections between
servers and the SAN fabric. At NetBank, HBAs need to ensure access to mission-critical
data and prevent storage system downtime. They also need to be functional with the
servers, storage and software used by the operation. Ideally, they are quick to install
and maintain and work so well that they become invisible. NetBank found all of that and
more with the QLogic HBAs from HP.
The NetBank SAN
The primary NetBank SAN environment serves 50 HP ProLiant servers. The virtualized
servers run VMware ESX Server along with Linux, Microsoft Windows 2000, and
Windows 2003 operating systems. HP EVA8000 storage arrays house the data. Each
server is connected to the SAN by two HBAs for redundancy—a total of 100 Fibre
Channel HBAs. NetBank was able to take advantage of server consolidation by using
HP BladeSystems running VMware for server virtualization. QLogic HBAs enabled higher
levels of server consolidation in VMware environments due to its architecture that
continued to deliver scalable performance as multiple virtual machines were added;
resulting in lower power, cooling and infrastructure costs.
With QLogic HBAs from HP, they were able to standardize on QLogic whether the server
is running Window, Linux and VMware. It also doesn’t matter if the server is a ProLiant
DL series or a BladeSystem server. NetBank was able to standardize on a driver and
firmware revision even though the HBAs were a mix of 2Gb and 4Gb.
HBAs Provide Non-disruptive Upgrade Path
NetBank had used 2Gb Emulex HBAs for some of their Windows servers. QLogic’s
leadership in providing Fibre Channel connectivity for HP BladeSystems and HP servers
running Linux gave NetBank a mixed HBA environment. The HP HBAs from QLogic for
Linux include a failover feature built into the driver to provide multi-path software for
redundant data paths. Just set it up and if one data path fails, the HBA will failover to
the data path that is working.
