UPDATED 14:29 EDT / JUNE 05 2014

Revving up innovation in Fibre Channel | #EMCWorld

#EMCWorld

In their interview with Rob Davis, CTO at QLogic, John Furrier and Stu Miniman of theCUBE got an insider view of QLogic’s current goals and roles in the quickly accelerating IT marketplace. Furrier began by asking “What’s going on with QLogic and EMC World?”

“All kinds of changes at QLogic,” David replied, citing the new CEO, and QLogic’s recent acquisition of Broadcom’s Ethernet business and Brocade’s HPA business.

Davis shared the “play-by-play” of the Broadcom and Brocade acquisitions.

“We had a Fibre Channel switch business for many years,” Davis began, “When we decided to back out of that space, it made working with Brocade much easier.” Davis finds the new partnership between QLogic, “the number one supplier of Fibre Channel adapters,” and Brocade, “the number one supplier of Fibre Channel switches,” exciting  — not only because they have access to new technologies, but also because “we’re really able to do some neat things in the QOS and the management of the data flow areas that you’ll see in some future products.”

The Fibre Channel and Ethernet Landscape

 

Rooting his question in the changes the server-adapter marketplace in recent years, Miniman wondered how Davis saw that market’s landscape. Davis called the Fibre Channel a “two-horse race” between QLogic and Emulex. On the Ethernet side Davis noted that there were a host of smaller enterprises, but noted that with the QLogic acquisition of Broadcom data technology, that business is also starting to consolidate.

  • No Merge in Sight for Fibre Channel and Ethernet Architecture

Keeping with his interest in QLogic solutions, Miniman asked whether Davis predicted Fibre Channel and Ethernet to merge. Davis responded that he expects the two technologies to “live separately for quite some time.” They serve different markets: “FIber channel has a very established market. All the high-end enterprises have used it for years. Ethernet has a very established market from a different perspective as the basic connectivity.”

  • The Future of Fibre Channel and Ethernet

Next, Miniman asked Davis what he sees in the marketplace that will drive the discussions low latency for years to come. Miniman cited EMC’s recent acquisition of DSSD and the sub-microsecond designs they are using. Davis explained that moves like these indicate Fibre Channel is going to be key to the Flash space, especially at the 16 gig level and increasing quickly to the 32 gig level. Some, David mentioned, are also doing 40 gig Ethernet, so “high performance is needed for flash whatever the network underlying it.” Turning his attention to low-latency, Davis described Fibre Channel as a “high-performance storage interface,” one that Ethernet is quickly catching up with “technologies like RoCE.”

  • Fibre Channel’s Global Growth

In his next question, Miniman touched on the growing popularity of Fibre Channel, in Asia, and specifically in China. “It’s tried and true technology,” Davis responded. He also added that he believes part of Fibre Channel’s growth in China has to do with the number of Chinese technologists educated in US schools, where Fibre Channel “is what’s taught.”

Supporting Storage Flexibility and Increasing Bandwidth

 

Looking for Davis’ take, Miniman laid out EMC’s “big push” around their ViPR product and software-defined solution, which offers the “flexibility to go between some of the block architectures and File and Object.” “Do you see a movement that way?” he asked.

Considering the databases today, Davis responded, “Object makes huge sense […] because it’s ‘write once, read many’,” while “block technology is designed to be in databases.” This, he explained is what makes block technology well-suited to Fibre Channel, while Object is better suited to Ethernet. For QLogic, Davis mentioned, growth in the storage space is particularly exciting because of their “new Ethernet technology from Broadcom.”

Following Davis’ Ethernet thread, Miniman wondered: “What does that mean to the portfolio of QLogic?” Davis replied that the Broadcom acquisition extends QLogic’s product line to the “40 gig and 100 gig Ethernet space.”

  • Higher Speed Adoption Follows Server Arrays

#EMCWorldRight away, Miniman asked about adoption of 40 gig and 100 gig Ethernet, whether it’s currently taking off or whether Davis expects it to do so in the coming year. “From a storage perspective,” Davis commented that he thinks, “it’s really waiting for the server array vendors, like EMC, to add that port to their appliances.” He rooted his statement in a comparison to the Fibre Channel side, where the change from 8 gig to 16 gig really didn’t happen until “the array vendors start providing the 16 gig ports.”

Miniman jumped in, “You’re saying the storage array is the long pole in the tent in getting things to take off?” Davis replied that Miniman’s comparison was true for the storage side, but “on the adapter side for regular servers,” the long pole is a bandwidth requirement. He noted that speeds are increasing: “10 gig is going to become the norm going forward this year.”

The EMC-QLogic Relationship

 

Miniman then asked about the partnership opportunities between EMC and QLogic. Davis said that QLogic is working with the EMC “array product lines” and “in their ethernet appliances.” There are many connections between EMC and QLogic, Davis said, “on the vendor-provider side.”

Miniman wondered, “What are you interested in getting out of this week?” In response, Davis listed his interest in the Flash space and in the software-defined storage space. These new releases, he said, give one a “glimpse into the future of the storage site.”

QLogic and “Hot Rod” Innovation

 

Furrier changed gears a little bit, and brought up how quickly the IT world is changing, powered by “engines of innovation.” But, he noted, “everyone is building their own hotrod.” In his question for Davis, Furrier asked the CTO for his “take under the hood,”the “key trends […] really being worked on right now.” David replied that the “hot rod” innovation is very exciting for QLogic because their technology is very “modifiable to these hotrods, so we can tune our engines.” Companies using QLogic products can “turn the knobs” to support their enterprises’ specific needs. Davis also mentioned that one of the concepts Prasad Rampalli, the new QLogic President and CEO, is pushing is “a re-definition, pumping new life into our product line through some of these new initiatives.”

Furrier then brought up industry concerns around manageability and asked Davis how understood manageability as part of the landscape. Davis said that at QLogic, they see vendors “asking us to add more visibility into the data flows […] and categorizing them more.” He added that QLogic believe it’s “well-positioned” to meet these customer needs.

  • Handing the Rapid Adoption of Flash

Furrier then asked about some of the biggest surprises QLogic encountered in the past few years. “How quickly Flash took off,” Davis responded. He gave an example of when Flash startups initially started: “They all wanted 10 and 40 gig ethernet. And then it seemed like they went out and talked to customers and they came back and they all needed 16 gig fiber channel and wondered when we’d have 32 ready.” This type of pressure, though, is one that Davis considers good for his company.

  • Revving Up Innovation in Fibre Channel

Next, Miniman wondered whether Davis still believes “there’s still innovation left in fiber channel?” Davis replied, “Definitely.” He cited “32 gig and 128 gig coming through the standards very quickly.” He also mentioned that he expects the partnership with Brocade to accelerate innovation because the two companies can now share their “roadmaps.” Furthermore, Davis noted, “you see big players like EMC, HP, some of the big storage players on the Fibre Channel side also very involved.”

  • How to Really Big Players Factor in the Equation?

Wondering about big players like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, Miniman asked what kind of impact these really big businesses have on QLogic. Davis said that while companies like Facebook don’t have a direct impact on QLogic, they are definitely pay attention because:

– They’re having an impact on QLogic’s customers’ business.

– They offer new opportunities to innovate

With the companies Miniman cited, Davis also mentioned that they have a huge diversity of needs, so “you have to design an I/O to be ready for whatever’s thrown at it.”

  • Software Tinkering as an Engine of Innovation

Furrier continued the innovation line of questioning, wondering whether the cycle of innovation, which accelerated OpenCompute and lead to a resurgence the tinkering/maker culture, has affected the way QLogic looks at the market.

Davis said that it had, and that QLogic sees this resurgence as “a definite engine of innovation.” They’ve made their own OCP adapter for OpenCompute and are looking for “ways to accelerate the protocols “on the OCP side and the Openstack side.” But, he also mentioned that the tinkerer/maker resurgence is “also driving innovation back on the Fiber channel side because its creating competition of a different architecture.”

  • Preparing for the Impact of Hyperscale

Next, Furrier commented on the trend toward hyper scale, “Big players,” he mentioned, “are massively scaling up. And the enterprises want hyper scale. You’re seeing  a lot of that going on.” Davis agreed, and that “the architecture of hyper scale is migrating to the enterprise.” He also observed that “hyperscale is definitely an ethernet business. And that’s why we incorporated the broad com technology […].”

“Are you worried about that at all?” Furrier inquired. Davis replied that his company is already orienting itself to handle those new types of challenges: “We’ve been adding to our executive staff a lot of expertise on the ethernet side, on the hyper scale side, and on the operations side to get ready for those kinds of things.”

A Unique Confluence of Trends

 

In his final question, Furrier asked Davis to reflect on the confluence of mega trends and ” tell the folks out there, in your own words, why is this point in time so different in the computer industry and the technology industry than any other time?”

Davis said that he sees two mega-trends coming together: the cloud and Flash. Flash, he explained, is totally changing storage “because you no longer have to design your systems around the limitations of the moving parts of a disk drive.” And the cloud is inciting “a revolution in the architecture.” According to Davis, these changes hearken back to the early days, when ” everybody called up a mainframe computer and used a terminal to talk to it. Now our terminals have just turned into our phones and our tablets.” He’s excited to see this type of architecture return to the IT industry.


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