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Spectra Logic Finds Competitive Performance and Cost Results in iSCSI vs. Fibre Channel Benchmark Tests

iSCSI Is A Practical Alternative for Microsoft Exchange Server Backups

 

BOULDER, Colo., —May 5, 2003— Today, IT managers experience shrinking backup windows, exponential data growth, and limited budgets for new hires and training. Recently, Spectra Logic conducted benchmark tests establishing that iSCSI backup performance is essentially equal to Fibre Channel for Microsoft Exchange database backups.  These results validate expectations that iSCSI presents an important new opportunity for IT organizations to implement storage consolidation at a fraction of the cost of Fibre Channel.

 

Spectra Logic engineers simulated a realistic customer environment by performing a hot backup operation of a Microsoft Exchange 2000 database. The database was backed up first over a Gigabit Ethernet network using iSCSI and then repeated over a 1Gigabit Fibre Channel SAN.  The results were surprising.  At 33 MB/sec for iSCSI and only 35 MB/sec for Fibre Channel there was effectively no difference in performance.  This data confirms that in a Microsoft Exchange environment it is the software and server hardware configuration that determines backup performance, not the storage network.  Given equal performance, with an 88 percent cost advantage iSCSI should quickly become the backup consolidation network of choice for Microsoft Exchange environments.

 

“If the e-mail server cannot stream data fast enough to fill a Fibre Channel pipe, why pay for one?” said Sharon Isaacson, senior product manager, Spectra Logic.  “With much lower acquisition and management costs, iSCSI-based storage networking performance is a much better match to the performance capabilities of the typical Exchange application environment.”

 

Spectra Logic offers libraries with integrated support for both iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage networks.  It has the only product line capable of supporting both protocols simultaneously and scaling them independently in the same library.  Shipping its second generation of integrated Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel interface technologies, Spectra Logic’s complete set of storage network interface options enable customers to more closely match their storage networking investment to their applications environment, thus maximizing backup consolidation ROI.  

 

Details of the Microsoft Exchange database backup experiment are available at www.Spectralogic.com.

About Spectra Logic Corporation

Spectra Logic Corporation, now in its 28th year, is a leading designer and manufacturer of innovative data protection for companies worldwide. Spectra Logic products make it easy for organizations to store and protect rapidly growing data by offering libraries with capacities ranging from 60 gigabytes to multiple petabytes. Today, the company has tens of thousands of libraries installed worldwide with customers that include NASA, LSU Medical, and Verizon Wireless. Spectra Logic's data protection products are available through a global network of resellers and OEMs. Spectra Logic has introduced many industry first products including: first to automate AIT in a library; first with all-native Fibre Channel and iSCSI libraries; first to integrate tape and disk in a single-frame library; first to offer hardware-based, encryption-enabled libraries. For more information, contact Spectra Logic by phone at (800) 833-1132, or visit the company's Web site at http://www.SpectraLogic.com.

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