July 2003

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Adaptec Gigabit NAC: Performance Test

Test report prepared under contract from Adaptec Executive Summary
Adaptec commissioned Veritest, a division of Lionbridge Technologies Inc., to independently verify that the Adaptec Network Accelerator Card (NAC) enhances the network performance of servers in terms of throughput and scalability, when compared to a standard Intel Pro/1000 MT copper Gigabit NIC, using NetIQs Chariot Performance Tools. We used IBM eServer X225 with Dual P4 Xeon 2.4GHz processors, which is one of the highend servers in the market, along with Intel Pro/1000 MT copper Gigabit NIC.

Key Findings

Our testing for network performance and scalability clearly demonstrated the superior performance of Adaptec ANA7711 Network Accelerator Card (NAC) over one of the highest performing Gigabit Network Interface Cards (NICs) in the market, an Intel Pro/1000 MT Server Adapter. In our network performance scalability tests, dual Adaptec NACs enhanced network performance up to 82.5 percent, as compared to dual Intel Pro/1000 MT Server NICs. For a single adapter performance testing, we found the Adaptec NAC enhanced network performance up to 42.4 percent, as compared to a single Intel Pro/1000 MT Server NIC.

In our dual adapter test configurations, the Adaptec ANA7711 NAC also provided a significant reduction in server CPU Chariot is a network traffic generation utilization in terms of PEI, a 142.3% percent improvement for product commonly used to measure the 2KB test script, as compared to an Intel Pro/1000 MT performance of network adapters. Server NIC. The Chariot software contains both console and endpoint programs. The console program controls the test and collects the test results. The endpoint software is installed on the clients and the server and is used to send data between specified systems using a Chariot test script. Chariot reports throughput test results in megabits per second and measures the CPU utilization on all systems participating in a specific test.

Adaptec provided four Adaptec ANA-7711 copper NACs. Veritest purchased two Intel Pro/1000 MT copper gigabit Ethernet server adapters from a retail vendor. In addition, VeriTest provided the following server system for the testing: IBM eServer X225 with Dual P4 Xeon 2.4GHz processors, 2GB of RAM and PCI-X 1.0 slots running Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition.

Chariot Testing Results

For all testing conducted using Chariot, we used Chariot console version 4.3, and Chariot endpoint version 4.2. The Chariot testing consisted of running a set of customized test scripts designed to place a load on the server and adapter combination under test using a full duplex traffic flow between the server with each adapter combination under test and a testbed of ten load generating clients running Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition. We connected the client systems to each server through an Extreme Networks Summit 5i with full duplex Gigabit connection. We installed one NetIQ Chariot endpoint version 4.2 on each desktop and server system. To properly address our test configuration needs, we used a modified version of the standard Chariot file send long test script. This test suite generates throughput results in megabits per second and measures the CPU utilization on the server under test. We tested the server described above configured with single and

dual Adaptec NACs and Intel NICs. In addition to the throughput results generated by Chariot, we computed the Performance Efficiency Index (PEI) for all testing configurations. The Performance Efficiency Index, originally developed by PC Week (now eWeek) in 1995, is determined by dividing throughput in Mbps by processor utilization as a percentage. For these PEI results, higher numbers are better. Please refer to the Test Methodology section of this report for complete details of the test suites used with Chariot. Single and Dual Adapter Tests For single and dual adapter tests, the results in Figure 1 show that the Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC provided the best performance of the two adapters we tested. The single Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC achieved up to 42.4 percent better peak average throughput compared to Intel PRO/1000 NIC. The dual Adaptec ANA-7711 NACs achieved up to 82.5 percent better peak average throughput compared to dual Intel PRO/1000 NICs.

Chariot Testing with Single and Dual Adapters

Average Throughput (Mbps) 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 2K 4K 8K 16K Chariot Test Script File Size 32K Single Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC Dual Intel Pro/1000 MT NICs Single Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC Dual ANA-7711 Adaptec NACs

Figure 1: Chariot test Throughput Chart (Single Adapter and Dual Adapters) In addition, we examined the CPU utilization on the server and calculated the Performance Efficiency Index (PEI). The Performance Efficiency Index, originally developed by PC Week (now eWeek) in 1995, is determined by dividing throughput in Mbps by processor utilization as a percentage. For these PEI results, higher numbers are better. For these PEI results, Figure 2 shows that the Adaptec ANA-7711 tested better than the Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC.

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Chariot Testing with Single and Dual Adapters

60.0 Performance Efficiency Index 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 2K 4K 8K 16K Chariot Test Script File Size 32K Single Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC Dual Intel Pro/1000 MT NICs Single Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC Dual ANA-7711 Adaptec NACs

Figure 2: Chariot test PEI Chart (Single Adapter and Dual Adapters)

Test Conclusion
Overall, our testing shows the Adaptec ANA 7711 NAC clearly enhances the network performance of the server in terms of throughput and scalability, while reducing the server CPU utilization when compared to an Intel Pro/1000 MT Server adapter in our tests. For further details about how we conducted these tests, please refer to theTesting methodology section of this report. For complete test results, please refer to the Testing results section of this report.

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Test Methodology
Adaptec commissioned Veritest, a division of Lionbridge Technologies Inc., to verify that Adaptec Network Accelerator Card (NAC) enhances the network performance of servers in terms of throughput and scalability. . We measured performance in terms of the throughput in megabits per second, and the server CPU utilization. We also tested the scalability of Adaptec NAC relative to NIC. Scalability here refers to the incremental performance enhancement from an additional NAC compared to that from an additional NIC in the same server. To test the performance of each server adapter, we used Net IQs Chariot Performance tools. Adaptec provided VeriTest with the drivers for their NAC. We used the default driver that ships in RedHat 8.0 Server Professional Edition for the Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC.

Chariot Testing
Chariot is a network traffic generation product commonly used to measure performance of network adapters. The Chariot software contains both console and endpoint programs. The console program controls the test and collects the test results. The endpoint software is installed on the clients and the server and is used to send data between specified systems using a Chariot test script. VeriTest used custom test script files for the adapter performance testing. The test script file is based upon the Chariot filesndl.scr script. At Adaptecs request, we made the following test script modifications: o o o o o File Size: 32KB, 16KB, 8KB, 4KB, 2KB, 1KB, and 512 bytes Destination Port: 9999 Close_type: Close Runtime: 45 seconds Batch-Mode

File Transfer (Send) - Long connection (filesndl.scr486 bytes): This script emulates sending a file from Endpoint 1 to Endpoint 2. The default file size is 100,000 bytes. At the completion of each test iteration, the Chariot software then calculated the overall throughput results generated during the test. For these tests, we used Chariots Console version 4.3 and the most recent release of version 4.2 of Chariots Performance Endpoints for the Linux Operating System. We ran two iterations of each test case to ensure repeatability. VeriTest installed the Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition operating system on the server system on a 9.1GB drive. To drive the workload, we installed Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition on ten Dell OptiPlex GX115 Pentium III/866 desktop systems with 256MB with a single 10GB IDE hard drive. We connected the six test clients and the server to the Extreme Summit 5i Switch via Category 5 copper connections. We connected the four test clients and the server to the Extreme Summit 5i Switch via 1000 Base-X fiber connections. VeriTest provided an HP Pavilion 8565C Pentium III/500MHz, 128MB RAM with an Intel Pro1000 network adapter running Windows 2000 Server SP3 for the Chariot administrative console. We connected the Chariot administrative console system to the Extreme Summit 5i Switch using a 100 Mbps Ethernet connection. The Extreme Summit 5i Switch has 12 100/1000 Base-T copper ports and 4-1000 BaseX fiber ports. We configured eight pairs of each of the ten desktop Chariot endpoints. We configured four pairs to send data from the desktop systems to the server and then another four pairs to send data from the server to the desktop systems. This resulted in 80 individual TCP connections.

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Test results
To test the performance of each server adapter, we used Net IQs Chariot Performance tools. Adaptec provided VeriTest with the drivers for their NAC. We used the default driver that ships in Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition for the Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC. We used the default settings for each of the adapter configurations.

Chariot Testing
For the Chariot testing, we conducted 14 tests or 2 iterations per server configuration. We used NetIQs Chariot console version 4.3, and Chariot endpoint version 4.2 to conduct the testing. The Chariot testing consists of custom full duplex test suites. We used NetIQs Chariot 4.3 to generate the network traffic between ten Dell OptiPlex GX115 Pentium III/866 desktop systems with 256MB of RAM running RedHat 8.0 Server Professional Edition and each test server. We connected the client systems to each server through an Extreme Networks Summit 5i with full duplex Gigabit connection. We installed one NetIQ Chariot endpoint version 4.3 on each desktop and server system. The following standard file Transfer (Send) Long connection Chariot test script with the exception of the following customizations: o o o o File Size: 32KB, 16KB, 8KB, 4KB, 2KB, 1KB1, and 512bytes1 Destination Port: 9999 Close connection: Close Runtime: 45 seconds

Note1: For the 1KB and the 512bytes tests, Chariot did not generate valid throughput test results. At the completion of each of these two specific tests, the Chariot console reported timing record warnings. No results are reported for these test cases. Single Adapter Test For the single adapter test, the results in Figure 3 show that the Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC provided the best performance of the two adapters we tested. For these tests, higher numbers are better. The Adaptec ANA7711 NAC achieved a peak average throughput of 1844.92 megabits per second for the 32KB test script. The Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Server Adapter achieved a peak average throughput of 1378.05 megabits per second for the 32KB test script. The results from the Chariot test script show that the Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC outperformed the Intel PRO/1000 MT NIC by an increase of 33.9 percent in terms of megabits per second. In addition, we examined the CPU utilization on the server and calculated the Performance Efficiency Index (PEI). The Performance Efficiency Index, originally developed by PC Week (now eWeek) in 1995, is determined by dividing throughput in Mbps by processor utilization as a percentage. For these PEI results, higher numbers are better. For these PEI results, Figure 3 shows that the Adaptec ANA-7711 tested better than the Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC. Single Adapter Adaptec Intel File %Improvement Size Throughput Throughput PEI Throughput PEI 2KB 1247.539 21.62 1776.423 25.88 42.4% 4KB 1297.949 24.02 1834.788 34.03 41.4% 8KB 1324.818 25.25 1835.892 36.66 38.6% 16KB 1348.067 25.50 1832.288 37.57 35.9% 32KB 1378.052 25.27 1844.922 38.45 33.9% Figure 3: Chariot test Throughput and PEI table (Single Adapter)

%Improvement PEI 19.7% 41.7% 45.2% 47.3% 52.2%

Dual Adapter Test For the Dual adapters test, the results in Figure 4 show that the Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC provided the best performance of the two adapters we tested. For these tests, higher numbers are better. The Adaptec ANA7711 NAC achieved a peak average throughput of 2575.77 megabits per second for the 8KB test script. The Adaptec Gigabit NAC: Performance Test 5

Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit NIC achieved a peak average throughput of 1464.63 megabits per second for the 8K test script. The results from the Chariot test show that the Adaptec ANA-7711 NAC outperformed the Intel PRO/1000 MT NIC by an increase of 82.5 percent for the 32KB test script. In addition, we examined the CPU utilization on the server and calculated the Performance Efficiency Index (PEI). The Performance Efficiency Index, originally developed by PC Week (now eWeek) in 1995, is determined by dividing throughput Mbps by processor utilization as a percentage. For these PEI results, higher numbers are better. For these PEI results, Figure 4 shows that the Adaptec ANA-7711 tested better than the Intel Pro/1000 MT NIC. Dual Adapters A dapte c Intel Files %Improvement Size Throughput Throughput PEI Throughput PEI 2KB 1376.169 17.98 2263.031 43.57 64.4% 4KB 1445.792 20.24 2469.423 47.09 70.8% 8KB 1464.627 21.36 2575.770 48.33 75.9% 16KB 1492.851 22.70 2514.576 49.21 68.4% 32KB 1358.271 26.75 2478.453 46.89 82.5% Figure 4: Chariot test Throughput and PEI table (Dual Adapters)

%Improvement PEI 142.3% 132.7% 126.3% 116.8% 75.3%

Test Conclusion
Overall, our testing shows the Adaptec ANA 7711 NAC clearly enhances the network performance of the server in terms of throughput and scalability, while reducing the server CPU utilization when compared to an Intel Pro/1000 MT Server adapter in our tests.

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Appendix A. System disclosures

IBM eServer x225 Processor / Speed / # of CPUs System RAM / Type / # of Slots Motherboard Manufacturer Main Bus Type BIOS / Version / Date HD Make / Model / Size HD Controller DAC Type CD-ROM Make / Model / Speed OS P4 Xeon / 2.4GHz / 2 2 GB IBM PCI/ PCI-X IBM 6.00 IBM ESX55T336607WLW (9.1 GB Ultra 3 SCSI) On-Board Dual IBM SCSI Controller 53c1003 Internal GCR-8480B IDE CD-ROM Red Hat 8.0 Server Professional Edition SMP Kernel 2.4.18-14smp

HP Pavilion Chariot Controller system Machine Description HP Pavilion 8565C Processor/Speed/Number Of Pentium III 500MHz/1 System RAM/Type/Slots 128 MB Motherboard Manufacturer Asus Motherboard Chipset Via Pro Chipset Model VT 82C596B L2 Cache 512 BIOS Award HD Model # / Size Quantum Fireball CX 3.5 series / 20GB HD Controller Via Bus Master PCI IDE Controller HD Buffer Size 512 HD File System FAT 32 Transfer Mode Ultra DMA Graphics Adapter On board NVIDIA RIVA TNT

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VeriTest (www.veritest.com), the testing division of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., provides outsourced testing solutions that maximize revenue and reduce costs for our clients. For companies who use high-tech products as well as those who produce them, smoothly functioning technology is essential to business success. VeriTest helps our clients identify and correct technology problems in their products and in their line of business applications by providing the widest range of testing services available. VeriTest created the suite of industry-standard benchmark software that includes WebBench, NetBench, Winstone, and WinBench. We've distributed over 20 million copies of these tools, which are in use at every one of the 2001 Fortune 100 companies. Our Internet BenchMark service provides the definitive ratings for Internet Service Providers in the US, Canada, and the UK. Under our former names of ZD Labs and eTesting Labs, and as part of VeriTest since July of 2002, we have delivered rigorous, objective, independent testing and analysis for over a decade. With the most knowledgeable staff in the business, testing facilities around the world, and almost 1,600 dedicated network PCs, VeriTest offers our clients the expertise and equipment necessary to meet all their testing needs. For more information email us at info@veritest.com or call us at 919-380-2800.

Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitation of Liability:

VERITEST HAS MADE REASONABLE EFFORTS TO ENSURE THE ACCURACY AND VALIDITY OF ITS TESTING, HOWEVER, VERITEST SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO THE TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS, THEIR ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR QUALITY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ALL PERSONS OR ENTITIES RELYING ON THE RESULTS OF ANY TESTING DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK, AND AGREE THAT VERITEST, ITS EMPLOYEES AND ITS SUBCONTRACTORS SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER FROM ANY CLAIM OF LOSS OR DAMAGE ON ACCOUNT OF ANY ALLEGED ERROR OR DEFECT IN ANY TESTING PROCEDURE OR RESULT. IN NO EVENT SHALL VERITEST BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH ITS TESTING, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT SHALL VERITEST'S LIABILITY, INCLUDING FOR DIRECT DAMAGES, EXCEED THE AMOUNTS PAID IN CONNECTION WITH VERITEST'S TESTING. CUSTOMERS SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES ARE AS SET FORTH HEREIN.

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