ESG Lab Validation Report Brocade VirtualFabric WP 00.lr

ESG Lab Validation Report
ESG Lab
Validation Report ™
Brocade Virtual Fabrics and Director Power Efficiency

Consolidated Connectivity and Power Savings
A validation study
by
ESG Lab
March 2007
Author:
Brian Garrett
Copyright © 2007, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................3
ESG Lab Validation ....................................................................................................................................5
Setting the Stage ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Isolation..................................................................................................................................................... 8
Sharing...................................................................................................................................................... 9
Fault Isolation ......................................................................................................................................... 10
Power Consumption ............................................................................................................................... 10
ESG Lab Validation Highlights .................................................................................................................14
Issues to Consider ....................................................................................................................................14
ESG Lab’s View .......................................................................................................................................15
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................16
ESG Validation Reports

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Enterprise Strategy Group

2
Introduction
The availability of electricity is decreasing while demand is increasing, resulting in higher cost per
Kilowatt. From a technology perspective, increased server, storage and connectivity density provides
significant ‘power budget’ challenges to data center managers. The power bill is not the only cost to
consider in the data center. HVAC systems draw even more electricity as they work harder to remove
increased amounts of excess heat. If the power and cooling systems in the data center are near capacity,
expensive upgrades may become unavoidable.
ESG Lab validated the power and cooling efficiency of Brocade 48000 directors. The savings that can be
realized using Brocade directors as a power efficient building block for Fibre Channel storage connectivity
and consolidation in the data center were calculated based on hands-on testing with live systems and
comparison to publicly available power consumption specifications for other vendor’s directors. Power
readings were obtained using three different techniques including detailed measurements collected by an
independent licensed electrician contracted for this specific verification. The power measurements
presented in this report are based on actual hands-on measurements by ESG Lab on generally available
hardware from Brocade.
ESG Lab also validated the capabilities of Brocade Virtual Fabrics, including the wizard-based
configuration, role-based isolation, fault isolation and shared resource support. Virtual Fabric support
became generally available for Brocade Directors in October 2006 and has since been qualified by all
major storage OEMs. Virtual Fabric support enables a single fabric configured as multiple securely
isolated storage area network (SAN) fabrics and can be used to serve multiple customers or business
units sharing a single physical SAN infrastructure.
Background
Fibre Channel has become the gold standard within enterprises for shared storage connectivity over the
past 15 years. Data center managers rely on Fibre Channel for the connection between servers and
shared storage devices for a variety of reasons. A shared Fibre Channel network between servers and
storage provides a centralized point of control for wiring, configuration, and management. Connecting
servers to a shared pool of storage leads to increased storage utilization which mitigates the need for
acquiring additional storage capacity. Most importantly, Fibre Channel networks can be configured for
ultra-high availability in support of mission-critical applications.
As Fibre Channel networks have grown in size and complexity over the years, a number of enterprises
have deployed director-class solutions as fault tolerant platforms for the delivery of massive connectivity
and advanced storage services. Chassis-based directors with bladed architectures have grown to support
hundreds of connections per chassis. As director deployments have grown to support thousands of
connections within some large organizations, a growing number of enterprises are looking for the ability to
deploy multiple SANs within a single, physical fabric while providing administrative granularity for each
SAN. There are a number of issues to consider before adopting such a director consolidation strategy.
Isolation
Multiple customers or business units sharing the same fabric must be isolated from each other. An
administrative change or mistake in one fabric can’t be allowed to take down the rest of the business.
Security and compliance concerns driven by internal service level requirements and external regulations
dictate that administrators, applications and users be blocked from unauthorized fabrics.
Sharing
Isolated business units with their own set of servers and storage devices often need access to a shared
storage infrastructure for basic economic as well as operational needs. Examples include tape libraries,
backup to disk devices and network resident services, including data migration, virtualization and
replication. Routing has traditionally been used to provide shared access amongst physically isolated
fabrics. Ideally a virtual fabric solution would allow an administrator to define isolated storage networks
that contain shared devices while avoiding the incremental cost and complexity of routing.

3
Power and Cooling

Power and cooling have become a major concern for IT managers in recent years. The amount of power
and cooling needed for each square foot of data center floor space is increasing dramatically as racks are
filled with higher density equipment. Technologies such as blade servers and virtualization have radically
changed the dynamics of predicting future power and cooling demands. As more equipment is deployed
in less space, many IT managers are confronted with significant power and cooling challenges while
trying to accommodate growth.
Brocade 48000 directors can be used to reduce power and cooling requirements in the data center. With
extremely low power consumption per port, the Brocade 48000 delivers the most power savings when
consolidating from a number of switches or previous generation directors. Consolidation and power
savings can also be achieved using Virtual Fabrics running within one or more Brocade 48000 directors.
ESG Lab measured the savings that can be realized with Virtual Fabrics compared to the use of
physically isolated directors. The configuration analyzed was defined to solve the needs of three
business units. Each business unit requires 96 ports of FC connectivity and shared access to a common
backup infrastructure. As shown in Figure One, the savings are significant when 10 of these solutions
are deployed over three years1.
Figure One: Reducing Data Center Power and Cooling with Brocade Directors
As shown in detail later in this report, the cost of power for the Brocade Virtual Fabric solution (shown in
green) is significantly lower than the competition (shown in orange) and dramatically lower than physically
isolated, under-utilized directors (shown in red). Note that the dollar amounts will vary depending on the
number of solutions deployed. Some customers may have only one virtual fabric solution deployed while
others may have more than 10, which is the number that was used for the calculations. Regardless, ESG
Lab has verified that the relative difference in the cost of power and cooling is linear and the savings are
very real and achievable.
1
The configuration and methodology used to measure power consumption and calculate the savings summarized in Figure One are
presented in detail in the Power and Cooling and Appendix sections of this report.

4
ESG Lab Validation

ESG Lab performed hands-on evaluation and testing of Brocade 48000 power efficiency and Virtual
Fabrics during a day of testing at a Brocade facility in San Jose, California. Directors and Virtual Fabrics
were configured, managed, and exercised using Windows servers and Fibre Channel testers. The savings
in power and cooling that can be realized when using Virtual Fabrics on a Brocade 48000 as part of a
consolidation was also evaluated.
Setting the Stage

ESG Lab testing was designed to mimic a real-world use case where isolated SANs are required for three
business units within a mid-sized company as shown in Figure Two. Each business unit requires 96 Fibre
Channel ports for server and storage connectivity. A shared tape library is used for backup and recovery
by all three business units.
Figure Two: Securely Isolated Business Units Sharing a Tape Library
The primary goal of a storage manager designing a network topology as shown in Figure Two is to ensure
the security and isolation of information assets owned by the Finance, Human Resources and
Engineering groups. The storage manager may also prefer to delegate the configuration and
management of each of these Virtual Fabrics to a junior storage administrator or other IT staff member.
Dividing the network into three Virtual Fabrics ensures that an administrative error or fault within one
Virtual Fabric has no effect on the other business units.
A similar configuration and methodology can be used to address a number of additional business
challenges. Test and development efforts can be isolated from production applications. Service providers
can isolate multiple customers sharing a single fabric of directors and switches. Network resident services
including virtualization and remote replication that are typically implemented on the “back-end” of a
storage network can be isolated from administrators in charge of the server-connected “front-end” of the
network.

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Configuring Virtual Fabrics

Brocade 48000 Virtual Fabrics are defined using a wizard or a command line interface. A Virtual Fabric is
simply a defined collection of server and storage ports within a fabric of directors and switches using
Brocade Fabric OS (FOS) 5.2 or greater. A FOS 5.1 and lower switch or director can participate in Virtual
Fabrics but is restricted to a pre-defined Virtual Fabric for backwards compatibility. Administrators with
different levels of authority and separate passwords are granted the authority to view or change the zone
and switch settings within each Virtual Fabric.
ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab testing began by creating Virtual Fabrics for the Finance and Human Resources groups. Each
group was assigned a single port on a Windows server and a single LUN on an HP MSA storage array.
The first step in creating a Virtual Fabric is the definition of administrative domains. Administrative
domains are the collection of ports that you would like to be in the Virtual Fabric. Administrative domains
are created using a wizard-based graphical user interface or by command line. ESG Lab used the wizard
as shown in Figure Three to create an administrative domain for the Finance group.
Figure Three: Creating an Administrative Domain for the Finance Group
The wizard guided ESG Lab through the three steps shown on the left of Figure Three. The bulk of the
work was done in the Membership step shown here. The server and storage ports belonging to the
Finance group were selected on the left and added to the list of available members on the right. This
intuitive drag and drop interface resembled the interface that Brocade customers are accustomed to using
when adding ports to a Fibre Channel zone.

6
The graphical user interface used to complete the definition of the Finance group’s Virtual Fabric is shown
in Figure Four. Note that the home domain for the administrator with a user name of VF1 is the Finance
domain (VirtualFabric1). The VF1 administrator was allowed to configure zones in the Finance domain
but had no authority within any other domains. In other words, a Virtual Fabric has been created and the
VF1 administrator has been granted rights to manage only the ports that belong to the Finance group.
Figure Four: Configuring an Administrator for the Finance Virtual Fabric
ESG Lab spoke with an engineer at a major OEM who spent two weeks qualifying Virtual Fabric
functionality from Brocade. He agreed with ESG Lab’s assessment and felt that configuring Virtual
Fabrics was “intuitive and very easy.” It reminded him of the isolation provided by virtual ATM networks
he had tested earlier in his career, but he believed that Brocade Virtual fabrics were significantly easier to
configure and manage.
Why This Matters

Fibre Channel storage administrators spend a significant amount of time configuring and managing the
zone sets which define the paths between servers and storage devices. As networks grow in size and
complexity, intuitive configuration tools are needed to keep manpower costs in check. ESG Lab has
confirmed that configuring Virtual Fabrics is wizard-based and intuitive. Once configured, an administrator
assigned to a Virtual Fabric can use the same tools and processes he/she is accustomed to. The only
difference is that only authorized ports can be seen or managed.

7
Isolation
Isolation is required at the management and data levels when multiple business units are sharing the
same director. Management isolation is needed to ensure that an administrator with the authority to
manage ports in one business unit can’t see or modify the settings for ports belonging to another business
unit. For instance, the CFO and other members of the Finance department would not be happy if a
storage administrator assigned to the HR department accidentally disabled a port and crashed a long-
running financial analysis application. Data isolation is needed to ensure that users or servers within one
business unit can’t access information belonging to another business unit. For example, the manager of
the Human Resources business unit needs to be confident that performance reviews within an application
running on storage that is part of a Virtual Fabric can not be accessed by unauthorized users.
ESG Lab Testing

The ESG Lab configuration used for this stage of testing is shown in Figure Five. After logging on as the
administrator for the Finance fabric, it was clear that the ports belonging to the Human Resources fabric
could not be viewed or managed and basic status information that is typically shown on the main Fabric
OS GUI was not available. Being the administrator of the Finance Virtual Fabric, ESG was, however,
able to configure and activate a zone between the server and LUN belonging to the Finance department.
ESG Lab logged in as user VF2 and repeated the process to create and activate a zone for the Human
Resources fabric. The Microsoft Windows Disk Administrator utility was run on the Finance server. A re-
scan proved that applications on the Finance server could access data belonging to the Finance group but
could not view or alter data belonging to the Human Resources group.
Figure Five: Isolated Virtual Fabrics for the Finance and Human Resources Groups
Why This Matters

2
Recent ESG research2 indicates that information security and availability are top priorities for IT
professionals. A director consolidation solution must therefore ensure that applications and administrators
in one Virtual Fabric have no impact on applications running in other Virtual Fabrics. ESG Lab has verified
that Brocade Virtual Fabrics can be used to provide an administrative firewall between business units
sharing a common director.
2
ESG Research Report: Branch Office Optimization, January, 2007.

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Sharing
Customers looking to deploy securely isolated SAN fabrics often have a need for shared access. At first
blush this may seem a contradiction, but it makes sense when you consider existing investments made in
network attached infrastructure that could be shared between secure networks. These include tape
libraries, backup to disk appliances and emerging intelligent storage service platforms.
ESG Lab Testing

A third Virtual Fabric was created during this phase of the ESG Lab validation for access to a shared
library as show in Figure Six. For the purposes of this test, a real tape library was not required. A LUN
within a disk array and a workload which simulated backup traffic was used instead.
Figure Six: Two Virtual Fabrics Sharing a Tape Library
The same drag and drop interfaces used earlier were employed to add the device to fabrics and create
zones. The disk administrator utility on the Windows servers in each Virtual Fabric confirmed that the
devices were accessible. The test completed with a simulated backup job run from each of the servers.
Why This Matters

Sharing network attached infrastructure (e.g., a tape library) between isolated SAN fabrics leverages
existing investments and saves money (CAPEX and OPEX). Traditionally, this problem was solved with
additional routing blades or switches configured between physically isolated fabrics and shared device(s).
Routing requires additional hardware and could trigger additional software licensing fees if deployed on
some director platforms, though not with Brocade’s Fibre Channel Routing blade for the 48000 or the
7500. ESG has confirmed that the sharing of devices between Brocade Virtual Fabrics is easy to configure
and doesn’t require additional hardware or software licenses. Once you’ve become skilled at configuring a
Virtual Fabric, there’s nothing new to learn. The same drag and drop or command line interface used to
add ports into a secure Virtual Fabric can also be used to add a shared device into the fabric.

9
Fault Isolation
While VMware is popular software that turns one physical server into multiple virtual servers, Virtual
Fabrics from Brocade work in a similar manner. Virtual Fabrics turn one physical fabric into multiple virtual
fabrics. In both cases, administrators expect that a fault in one virtual environment will not have an effect
on applications sharing the same physical infrastructure.
ESG Lab Testing

I/O traffic was generated in the Finance and HR fabrics using the industry standard IOMETER utility.
The following faults were injected into the Finance Virtual Fabric:
• A cable was pulled and re-inserted between the server and the director while I/Os were running. This
causes a variety of reset events to occur, including RSCNs.
• A Brocade command line utility (cfgdisable) was used to delete the zone settings. As a result, the
zone being used by the Finance server disappeared and it lost access to its storage.
• Brocade port disable/enable command line utilities were run four times in a row. This causes a variety
of events to occur, including repeated fabric logins.
In all cases, the Windows server in the Finance Virtual Fabric failed as expected and the Human
Resources server ran without interruption.
Why This Matters

Enterprises around the world rely on directors as the platform of choice for storage network connectivity in
support of mission-critical applications. The ultra-high availability that directors are known for must not be
sacrificed when Virtual Fabric are introduced. ESG Lab has verified that operator errors and common
faults within a Virtual Fabric, including cable failures and RSCNs, have no impact on applications running
within other Virtual Fabrics.
Power Consumption
Power and cooling are becoming concerns for data center managers. Devices with high power draw have
direct and indirect costs that must be factored into data center design, forcing data center managers to
evaluate and deploy more power-efficient products to help minimize these issues.
Brocade uses power efficient ASICs, highly efficient power supplies and back-to-front cooling to minimize
the electricity costs for Brocade 48000 directors in the data center and to allow the use of industry
standard server racks which are the standard for datacenters. Back-to-front airflow means that the
Brocade 48000 can be used in datacenters that employ a hot-isle / cool-isle design to optimize the
datacenter’s cooling efficiency.
ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab performed extensive hands-on testing to measure the power drawn by Brocade 48000 directors
to calculate the savings that can be realized with Virtual Fabrics and Brocade’s advanced power efficient
design. Power draw was measured for a variety of configurations using three independent methods3:
1. A clamp-on ammeter (“amp clamp”)

2. A metered power strip
3. Data logger readings collected by an independent electrician4
3
The models of the test tools used during this phase of the validation are listed in the Appendix.
4
Russell Goldbeck, Emerson Electrical Reliability Service, 6900 Koll Center Pkwy. Suite 415, Pleasanton, California 94566

10
Voltage and amperage were measured with the clamp-on meter and the metered power strip to calculate
the Watts consumed for each configuration. Data logger readings were collected at five second intervals
over a two minute period. The data logger provided extensive reporting, including voltage, amperage, true
power draw and the power factor ratio. The amperage readings taken by the clamp-on meter and the
metered power were correlated at the beginning of the test. The average of the data logger values over
two minutes were used to calculate the final values presented in this report5.
As shown earlier in Figure Two, the configuration analyzed was that of an organization with three
business units. Each business unit required 96 Fibre Channel ports for server and storage connectivity
and shared access to a tape library. The power drawn by each of the configurations was compared.
The values shown in Table One indicate the number of each component required to implement a fault
tolerant solution. In single or multi-director fabrics where customers must have administrative isolation,
Virtual Fabrics allow multiple tenants within a single fabric. In contrast, the Brocade FR4-18i router blade
is designed to share devices between multiple fabrics that cannot be merged or consolidated due to
technical, regulatory or support reasons. Note that in this example, Virtual Fabrics were used instead of
routing and the number of directors was reduced from six to two.
Table One: Physical vs. Virtual Fabric Configurations
Physical Virtual Virtual

Fabrics Fabrics SANs
(Brocade) (Brocade) (competition)
Director Chassis 6 2 2
48 port line cards 6 6 6
Routing line cards 3 0 0
Table Two: Brocade 48000 Power Measurements
Power
True Power Factor Watts Energy Carbon footprint
Amps (AC Watts) (ratio) / port (KWh/month) (metric tonnes/yr)
Empty chassis (2 CP) 2.8 522.7 0.89 n/a 381.8 1.92
Full chassis , 384 ports
5.2 1004.7 0.95 2.62 734 3.46
(8 x 48 ports)
Partial chassis, 128 ports
3.5 659.9 0.93 5.16 482 2.55
(3x32p, 2x16p)
48 port line card 0.3 52.3 0.916 1.08 38.2 0.19
32 port line card 0.2 41.8 0.90 1.31 30.5 0.14
16 port line card 0.1 22.2 0.906 1.38 16.3 0.08
Routing line cards 0.7 154.9 0.916 8.6 113.1 0.57
5
The data logger consistently reported amperage values about 0.5 Amps higher than the clamp-on meter and the metered power
strip. The data logger values were used since it reported the highest power draw (i.e., most conservative) and had the best
precision.
6
The power factor presented here was measured on a chassis with two control processors and a single line card. The power factor
of the system as a whole should be greater within a system populated with more than one line card as observed during full system
testing with a power factor of 0.95.

11
Table Three: Competitive Power Specifications and Analysis
Watts Energy Carbon footprint

DC Watts7 / port (KWh/month) (metric tonnes/yr)
Empty Chassis (2 SP, 2 CM) 501 n/a 573.5 2.56
Full chassis, 348 ports
2458 6.4 1770 9.04
(5x48p, 3x24p, 3x12p)
Partial chassis, 120 ports
1330 11.1 957.6 4.89
(2x48p, 2x12p)
48 port line card 185 3.9 133 0.68
24 port line card 147 6.1 105 0.54
12 port line card 132 11.0 95 0.48
What the Numbers Mean

Table Two presents the true power draw measured by ESG Lab for a variety of configurations. Table
Three shows specified ratings for comparable director configurations from a Brocade competitor8. True
Power is the value used to estimate the cost of electricity paid to a utility company and was measured for
an empty Brocade 48000 chassis with two control processors and a full chassis with 384 ports of Fibre
Channel connectivity. The line card values were derived by measuring the Watts of a director configured
with a single line card and subtracting the Watts recorded for the empty chassis.
Each of the measurements was captured on an idle system and then ESG Lab ran one additional test to
determine how active I/Os on many ports would affect power usage. This test was performed on a system
configured with two 48 port Fibre Channel blades actively processing I/Os within a pair of Virtual Fabrics.
Two Fibre Channel testers were used to create the I/O workload9. A difference in power usage of 3% was
noted between an idle system and a system with 60 ports active.
Power Factor
Power Factor is a measure of how efficiently a system uses alternating current (AC) electricity10. A Power
factor of 1 is perfectly efficient with a ratio of 0 is completely inefficient. A low power factor requires more
volt-amperes (VA) to be delivered than is actually used to produce work in the form of watts (W). While
power usage is charged by watts used, many electric companies levy penalties to commercial customers
with unacceptably low power factors. Also, a datacenter must be provisioned based on volt-amperes, not
just watts, which would means a low power factor device requires circuits, PDUs, and UPSs to deliver the
required VA even though it may not put all of the VA to work. Note that power factor is not the AC-DC
power conversion efficiency of a power supply.
A power factor of 0.85 is generally considered acceptable in the IT industry and 0.95 or above is excellent.
ESG Lab measured a power factor rating of 0.95 for the fully populated Brocade 48000.
Energy
KWh/month is the number of Kilowatt hours consumed per month. This is a value that shows up on your
electric bill each month. This value is used to calculate the cost of power and cooling over three years
which will be shown further in this report.
7
Note that watt specifications are listed as DC draw internal to the system. External AC watts drawn from the power grid will be
higher, depending on the conversion efficiency of the power supplies. AC watts = DC watts / (power supply efficiency)
8
The competitive values shown here are based on publicly available documentation which indicates that “the data listed is based on
worst-case conditions. “Typical numbers are approximately 30 percent below the numbers listed here.”
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5990/products_installation_guide_chapter09186a008080e235.html#wp1068341
9
The models and configuration are documented in the Appendix.
10
Technically, power factor is the ratio of apparent Power (Volt-Amps) to true power (Watts).

12
Carbon Footprint
Carbon Footprint is a measure of the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the
amount of greenhouse gases produced. Some countries, corporations and individuals are using carbon
offset credits such as planting a tree or driving a hybrid vehicle to negate the effect of greenhouse
emissions. The carbon footprint of IT infrastructure is not well understood yet in the United States, but is
very well understood in countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol with a goal of reducing greenhouse
emissions. The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty whereby countries agree to reduce the amount of
greenhouse gases they emit if their neighbors do likewise.
Brocade Power Recommendations and Guidance

ESG Lab noted that the True Power measurements for line cards were 28%, 32% and 11% lower than the
publicly stated values found on Brocade’s website for the 48 port, 16 port and router line cards
respectively11. In other words, the power consumption guidance that Brocade provides online is
respectively conservative. The value measured for the empty chassis was however significantly higher
than Brocade guidance (nearly double). A re-test on a second empty chassis recorded a lesser value of
374.8 Watts (43% above guidance). ESG Lab also noted that power draw fluctuated significantly (+/- 60
Watts) during empty chassis testing compared to full and partial chassis testing. This lack of stability on
an empty chassis has no impact on customers (no-one buys an empty chassis), but was factored into
ESG Lab’s calculations. To be conservative, the higher of the values (522.7 Watts) was used for cost
calculations.
The Cost of Power and Cooling over Three Years

The configuration and power data shown in Tables One and Two were used to calculate the cost of power
and cooling for a Brocade 48000 over three years. The average cost of commercial power in the US in
2006 as reported by the US Department of Energy was used for the calculation ($0.0936 per Kwh)12. The
cost of power required for cooling was estimated at 50% the cost of the power required for each
configuration. In other words, ESG Lab assumed that it takes about half the power to cool the system as
it does to run it.
Figure Seven: Virtual Fabric Consolidation Savings over Three Years
11
http://www.brocade.com/products/directors/48000_power_calculator.jsp as of March 19, 2007
12
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html

13
As shown in Figure Seven, consolidating onto power efficient Brocade 48000 directors provides
significant savings. Consolidated Brocade directors (shown in green) provides significant savings
compared to the competition (shown in yellow) and dramatic savings compared to the use of physical
isolated and under-utilized directors (shown in red). Note: data centers often have multiple independent
power grids, extensive power conditioning, and redundant backup systems all of which may significantly
add to the true cost per Kwh – we estimate that cost can be as high as $10 per Kwh in some cases. A true
cost of power of 10 dollars would magnify the savings presented in Figure Seven by one hundred times.
Redundant Power Considerations

The Brocade 48000 supports two independent power feeds and four power supplies for redundancy. ESG
Lab performed a series of tests to ensure that adequate power is available in the event of a power
component failure. A fully configured director with 384 ports of connectivity was used for this phase of
testing. Fibre Channel testers were used to generate a heavy I/O workload on 60 ports configured within
a pair of Virtual Fabrics. One of the redundant power cords was unplugged. This caused two of the four
power supplies to shut down as expected leaving the director in a fault tolerant configuration with two
power supplies remaining operational. Power was re-applied and the experiment was repeated for the
other power cord. Three out of four field-replaceable power supplies were removed. In all cases, the
director continued operating and I/Os continued running as expected.
Why This Matters

Power and cooling are reaching crisis proportions for a number of data center managers -- particularly
those located in high density East and West coast US cities where power costs are high, real estate is at a
premium and access to incremental power may not be an option. High density blade servers and server
virtualization make the problem worse. ESG Lab has verified that Brocade 48000 Directors are extremely
power efficient and have excellent back-to-front airflow for optimal cooling. The power savings that can be
realized with a Brocade 48000 director are magnified when used as a consolidation platform with Virtual
Fabrics.
ESG Lab Validation Highlights

; Virtual fabrics consolidating three business units on a single director significantly reduced the cost of
power and cooling.
; Configuring Brocade Virtual fabrics was intuitive and straightforward.
; An administrator with rights in only one fabric could not see or configure unauthorized ports.
; Zoning a Virtual Fabric felt the same as zoning a physical director – the only difference was the limited
number of ports that could be viewed and managed.
; Sharing devices between Virtual Fabrics was easy to configure and didn’t require additional hardware
or licenses.
; Configuration mistakes and faults introduced in one Virtual Fabric had no impact on applications
running in another Virtual Fabric.
Issues to Consider
Keeping the cost of power and cooling in perspective
Networking and storage equipment are worthy of consideration and conservation, but the biggest
consumers of power in the data center today are cooling equipment, high-end storage and servers.
Improvements in power distribution, cooling and data center air flow can yield significant savings. Server
virtualization can be used to drive up utilization, which yields more work performed for each dollar spent
on power. Storage virtualization and a solution-based approach to storage networking consolidation can
yield similar benefits. It is also important to note that there are no real standards on how power
consumption is reported by vendors, which is why it was important to evaluate power consumption based
on true independent testing, as was done in this testing of the Brocade 48000. Finally, power is “lost” or
“leaked” every time it is down-converted. When power comes into a rack at 208v 3-phase and is
converted for blades within a director, you can expect to lose anywhere from 10% to 30% on average, and

14
then again in the individual components when that power is down-converted to the local power supplies,
and so on. These numbers vary greatly but can be important considerations.
If the overall cost of power, cooling, humidification and air flow are much higher than the baseline example
of $.10 per Kwh due to conditioning, etc., the percentage of “environmental” cost to the capital acquisition
cost can be very high -- and as such needs to be considered in any total cost comparison. Conversely, if
the environmental costs only equate to a very small overall percentage, while important, they may not
factor into a buying decision.
We do believe that environmental concerns will become more and more important over the next five
years. In some major metropolitan areas, buying additional power is simply not an option -- there is no
more to buy. In that case, IT shops must replace lower efficiency gear with higher efficiency replacements
with an eye towards overall cooling and air flow considerations. If a shop is physically out of room,
bringing in denser equipment is the only way to deal with growth, but doing so without understanding the
implications of other environmental factors can be a disaster. For IT managers who are running out of
power and cooling in the data center, the power savings that can be realized with power efficient Brocade
48000 directors and Virtual Fabrics can matter significantly.
For those who have power and cooling to spare and do not consider the incremental cost of conditioning
and redundancy, it should be noted that the cost of power may be relatively low in relation to the total cost
of acquiring and maintaining a populated director. If organizations are not yet considering power and
cooling as metrics in the buying decision, beginning to work with a vendor that is conscious of the issues
is probably a very good idea because, as previously stated, ESG expects energy challenges and
associated costs to be factors in IT for a while.
Backwards compatibility
Virtual Fabric support is implemented in Fabric OS version 5.2 and is available as a software upgrade on
existing Brocade 48000 directors. Directors running versions of Brocade Fabric OS below 5.2 are placed
in a dedicated Virtual Fabric.
Early Adopters
While power efficient Brocade 48000 directors have been generally available since 2005, Virtual Fabric
support is relatively new. Virtual Fabric support became generally available in October, 2006 and was
qualified by major OEMs in December, 2006. ESG Lab verified that Virtual Fabrics work as advertised in
a lab setting and spoke with an engineer at a major OEM who qualified the feature.
ESG Lab spoke with a hosted services provider who has validated the space and power efficiency of
Brocade 48000 directors. “Like our enterprise customers, we are concerned about power and cooling in
the data center and have standardized on Brocade 48000 directors in production. When we deployed our
first Brocade 48000 we were thrilled to learn that it consumed less than half the power of our previous
generation director. We’ve looked at the competition and are convinced that Brocade provides the best
port density and power savings per floor tile in the industry.”
ESG Lab’s View

The growing adoption of server virtualization and blade servers has proven that consolidation reduces the
cost and complexity of IT infrastructure. The resulting increase in density is causing a new problem in the
data center -- how to deal with an alarming increase in power and heat. In many companies, the CFO has
realized that containing the costs of power and cooling is a strategic initiative that can reduce operating
costs and positively impact bottom line growth. The benefits of virtualization and consolidation can be
applied to the storage network using the Brocade 48000 directors. More efficiently utilizing existing
hardware required to deploy multiple applications from different business units on a SAN is the first step.
The next process is working with vendors such as Brocade who design hardware with energy efficient
components that can be deployed to achieve measurable power and cooling savings.

15
While ESG believes that the test results presented in this report are valid, we recommend that IT and
facilities managers work together with their suppliers to perform their own analysis based on their specific
requirements. A number of factors can influence the results, including the services to be deployed in a
storage network and the servers and storage required for a total solution. After completing the hands-on
testing, ESG Lab is convinced that Brocade 48000 directors are extremely power efficient. The power
efficiency of Brocade 48000 components combined with secure isolation and ease of management of
Virtual Fabrics provide a sound foundation for consolidation and savings.
Appendix
The configuration and tools used to measure measurements during the ESG Lab Validation are indicated
in the following table. For additional detail and power consumption measurements that apply to your
specific environment, feel free to contact your Brocade representative.
Test Configuration Details
How Power Consumption was Measured

Clamp Multimeter CM-1500, Greenlee, Inc.
Metered Power Strip DualComm D1630VBR, Cyber Switching, Inc.
Data Logger PowerSight 3000, Summit Technology, Inc.
The Configuration Tested

Brocade 48000 FC Directors Up to 384 x 4 Gb ports, Fabric OS 5.2
Servers Windows 2003
Host Bus Adapters Emulex LP9000 HBAs, drive 5.2.3.3790.1830
Storage HP MSA 1000
Traffic generators Agilent FC Tester, 12 x 4 Gb ports; Spirent SmartBits 48 x 2 Gb
Report of the Independent Electrical Contractor

I have audited the results presented in this report including a careful review of the power measurements
presented in Table Two. In my opinion, and as a representative of Emerson Electrical Reliability Service,
I certify that the results presented are accurate and based on a sound and repeatable test methodology.
Russell Goldbeck, Electrical Contractor

Emerson Electrical Reliability Service
6900 Koll Center Pkwy. Suite 415
Pleasanton, California 94566
GA-RP-907-00

16

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