Performance and Recommended Use of AB545A 4-Port Gigabit Ethernet Cards

ManualsBrandsHP ManualsNetwork HardwareHP PCI-X 266MHz 10Gb Ethernet SR Multi-OS Card

June 2005

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................... 3

Recommended Use Based on Performance and Design ........................................ 3

Performance Summary .................................................................................... 5

Gigabit Ethernet Transmit Performance .............................................................. 6

Gigabit Ethernet Receive Performance ............................................................... 7

Gigabit Ethernet Bidirectional Traffic Performance ............................................... 8

How We Measured GbE Efficiency ................................................................... 9

Features and Benefits of the AB545A .............................................................. 11

For More Information .................................................................................... 11

Legal Notices ............................................................................................... 12

Performance and Recommended Use of

AB545A

4-Port Gigabit Ethernet Cards

From Results on an HP rx4640 Server

Summary of content (12 pages)

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Performance and Recommended Use of AB545A 4-Port Gigabit Ethernet Cards From Results on an HP rx4640 Server June 2005 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................... 3 Recommended Use Based on Performance and Design ........................................ 3 Performance Summary .................................................................................... 5 Gigabit Ethernet Transmit Performance .......................
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Introduction Introduction This article highlights the excellent performance and high availability of HP’s new AB545A card (Figure 1) that provides four 1000Base-T ports for Gigabit Ethernet networking. This article also provides suggestions based on the performance and technology that will help you to best meet your business needs.
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Recommended Use Based on Performance and Design • Schedule workloads for ports: All 4 ports can be cabled and connected. Schedule or prioritize applications so that 2 ports are running full bidirectional traffic at any given time or all 4 ports are running unidirectional traffic. The 2 ports selected can be any of the four 1000Base-T ports on the card. This provides the best possible per port data rates. • Set up a pair of cards for high availability as shown in Figure 2.
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Performance Summary Performance Summary The AB545A card provides excellent performance when used in accordance with the recommendations in this paper. Figure 3 summarizes the performance results possible when combinations of Gigabit Ethernet transmit, receive, and bidirectional traffic are run through the card with a standard 1500-byte maximum transmission unit (MTU).
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Gigabit Ethernet Transmit Performance Gigabit Ethernet Transmit Performance Figure 4 shows the performance results of the Gigabit Ethernet ports when transmit (outbound unidirectional) traffic is run through the card with a standard 1500-byte MTU.
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Gigabit Ethernet Receive Performance Gigabit Ethernet Receive Performance Figure 5 shows the performance results for the Gigabit Ethernet ports when receive (inbound unidirectional) traffic is run through the card with a standard 1500-byte MTU.
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Gigabit Ethernet Bidirectional Traffic Performance Gigabit Ethernet Bidirectional Traffic Performance Figure 6 shows the performance results when bidirectional (simultaneous inbound and outbound) traffic is run through the card with a standard 1500-byte MTU.
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How We Measured GbE Efficiency How We Measured GbE Efficiency This article highlights the AB545A throughput. Throughput is the data transfer rate, or data rate -- the amount of time it takes data to move from one place to another. In this article, it’s shown for one-way signals as well as 2-way. Throughput measures how well programs run with a certain workload and how quickly user requests can be handled. The performance results shown in this article were measured with the netperf benchmarking software.
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How We Measured GbE Efficiency Table 1 Products Used in the Performance Measurement Tests (Continued) Clients generating the test load for Gigabit Ethernet Four rx2600 servers • Two, 1.5 GHz Intel Itanium2 CPUs each • HP-UX 11i version 2 (B.11.23.0303.4) • One A7012A PCI-X 1000Base-T card per rx2600 • LAN Driver version – IEther-00 B.11.23.05 Benchmark software for Gigabit Ethernet tests 10 Netperf 2.
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Features and Benefits of the AB545A Features and Benefits of the AB545A Features and benefits of the AB545A include: • The Gigabit Ethernet ports support virtual LANs (VLANs). A Virtual LAN (VLAN) is a logical or virtual network segment that can span multiple physical network segments. VLANs isolate broadcast and multicast traffic by determining which destinations should receive that traffic, thereby making better use of switch and end-station resources.
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Legal Notices Legal Notices © 2005 Hewlett-Packard Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.