Product description from manufacturer
The QLA2100 Series, based on QLogic's award-winning Fiber Channel architecture applies advances in I/O technology to a solid, industry-proven design, connecting PCI to a Fiber Channel loop or switch. The QLA2100 Series provides all the benefits of Fiber Channel technology - fabric connections for hundreds of devices, bandwidth to 100 MB/s and distances through 10 km. Its highly integrated, single-chip design promotes high performance, reliability and low power consumption in the industry's most cost-effective solution. The QLA2100 Series supports key features that are critical to real-world application performance. The on-chip RISC processor and high-level software interface enable the QLA2100 Series to complete multiple I/O operations without host intervention, creating the lowest CPU utilization of any Fiber Channel host adapter on the market. The result is the ability to add multiple host adapters with linear performance increases, expanding the reach of your network with minimal hardware investment. To further boost performance, QLogic's configuration utility provides tunable parameters for application-specific needs, and the industry-leading Reduced Interrupt Operation (RIO) allows you to significantly reduce CPU interrupts per I/O. QLogic's unique software architecture makes integrating the QLA2100 Series simple. The message-style software interface creates a high level of host software compatibility between parallel SCSI and Fiber Channel applications, which allows you to maximize your host software investment when you migrate to future interface technologies. In addition, cutting-edge software utilities like QLogic Management Suite provide advanced capabilities for remote configuration and management, loadbalancing and LUN-masking. When combined with broad OS support, the QLA2100 Series is far more than just hardware - it's a complete I/O solution.
