Dell Technologies and Broadcom collaborated to understand database workloads performance comparison between NVMe/FC and SCSI/FC. The two companies performed a study and commissioned a third party (Tolly) to initiate the benchmark using a Broadcom Emulex LPe36002 64Gb Host Bus Adapter (HBA), a 16G PowerEdge server, and a PowerStore storage array. Dell Technologies is in a unique position to offer end to end NVMe/FC capabilities resulting in significant performance gains as evident in this study using its mid-range storage product line such as PowerStore.
NVMe and SCSI
Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is a host controller interface designed to scale and address the needs of enterprise and client systems that use PCI Express ®-based solid-state storage. It is designed specifically for high-performance, multi-queue communication with non-volatile memory (NVM) devices. NVMe supports up to 64K commands per queue and up to 64K queues for parallel operations. NVMe can be transported over Fibre Channel protocol as a means to connect storage devices and servers over an extended distance.
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is set of standards and commands for transferring data between devices. SCSI can support one command queue with a queue depth of up to 256 commands. SCSI commands can be transported over Fibre Channel protocol as well.
Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) is a specialized, high-speed, low-latency networking method of connecting storage devices to servers. It is an ordered, lossless transport protocol used primarily for SCSI commands. The Fibre Channel SAN connects storage devices and servers using optical fibers and supports data rates of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 gigabit per second.
In a world of NVMe/FC and SCSI/FC, both NVMe and SCSI data are encapsulated and transported within Fibre Channel frames.
Benchmark setup
The performance comparison between NVMe/FC and SCSI/FC was focused on database throughput, latency, and CPU efficiency using TPROC-C like workload. Oracle Database 19c and Microsoft SQL Server 2019 were used along with HammerDB as a front-end client software.
The test bed for the benchmark includes:
- 1 x Dell PowerEdge R760 rack server with Emulex LPe36002 64Gb Host Bus Adapter
- 1 x Dell PowerStore 9200T
- 1 x Brocade G720 FC switch
Test results
To view the complete test report and the detailed test bed configuration, see the following documents:
