Hitachi selects QLogic 3GCNA technology for 10GbE iSCSI connectivity

ALISO VIEJO, USA: QLogic Corp. announced that its 8200 Series third-generation 10GbE converged networking adapter (3GCNA) technology is now shipping as an embedded target controller solution in Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) arrays.

QLogic 3GCNA single-chip-based products allow customers ranging from SMB to Enterprise to transition from 1GbE iSCSI to 10GbE, thereby allowing organizations to meet the increasingly complex requirements of today's virtualized data centers and cloud computing environments while preserving existing IT investments.

"QLogic 3GCNA technology is being adopted by leading storage OEMs such as Hitachi because it offers protocol flexibility on the same hardware over Ethernet which is ubiquitous across SMB and enterprise data centers," said Amit Vashi, vice president, marketing, Host Solutions Group, QLogic. "Leveraging our many years of leadership in iSCSI offload, QLogic's 8200 Series converged controller allows a seamless migration path for customers from 1GbE to 10GbE and greatly simplifies network design while increasing scalability without additional complexity and overhead."

"The iSCSI array market has grown steadily over the past several years, surpassing $2.7 billion in end user spending in 2010, a 45 percent gain from 2009," Natalya Yezhkova, research director, storage systems, IDC. "With the emergence of 10Gb iSCSI SANs and the continuous customer demand for cost-effective network storage solutions, especially for virtualized server environments, we expect the iSCSI array segment will remain one of the fastest growing market segments over the next 5 years."

The QLogic 8200 Series' highly programmable architecture and robust feature set are well-suited for storage system OEMs. With full-featured hardware offload of 10Gb iSCSI, the QLogic 8200 Series unburdens storage systems from packet processing at high I/O rates so the system can instead focus on running applications. Additionally, the 8200 Series converged controller delivers T10 data integrity support, an increasingly important requirement among storage vendors.

"QLogic has deep storage expertise, spanning more than a decade in the storage networking arena, which was a primary reason we selected their design for 10Gb iSCSI," said Kenji Fujita, department manager, Disk Array Hardware Development Dept. II, Disk Array Systems Division, Hitachi. "Today's virtualized data centers and cloud computing environments demand 10GbE bandwidth. By integrating QLogic 3GCNA technology into our AMS arrays, Hitachi is able to deliver 10Gb iSCSI storage solutions that are built on the same driver stack as our other QLogic-based solutions for maximum interoperability."