Micron ships first MLC PCIe flash card

Micron Technology Inc. has expanded its flash product line with its first MLC PCIe Express NAND card, two years after launching its first SLC PCIe flash card.

The P420m multi-level cell (MLC) card should help Micron sales because MLC cards are more commonly deployed than single-level cell (SLC) in the enterprise. MLC cards are cheaper than SLC and software enhancements have improved MLC's reliability and performance. Micron was slow to the MLC market, as most of its major competitors already have MLC PCIe flash cards.

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Kaminario K2 flash array replaces PCIe with SAS SSDs

Kaminario this week launched new versions of its K2 all-flash arrays and operating system, bringing out a modular 1U design while switching from PCI Express flash cards to hot-swappable SAS solid-state drives.

The startup uses commodity hardware and its SPEAR (Scale out Performance and Resilient Architecture) OS to build its Kaminario K2 arrays.

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Intel to sell LSI Nytro MegaRAID PCIe flash cards

LSI Corp. and Intel Corp. today expanded their OEM partnership to include the LSI Nytro MegaRAID PCI Express flash card. Intel will sell the server-side flash device with two of its RAID solid-state drive storage cache controllers.

LSI's Nytro MegaRAID PCI Express cards sit in the server PCIe slots to accelerate storage directly attached to the server. Intel previously offered LSI MegaRAID controller cards for SATA, SAS or solid-state application acceleration with RAID-on-chip data protection technology. Nytro MegaRAID cards add on-board NAND flash, SandForce flash storage processors and intelligent caching for faster application acceleration. LSI acquired flash controller chip vendor SandForce in October 2011.

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QLogic Mt. Rainier FabricCache pools PCIe flash cache across servers

QLogic Corp. today launched the first product based on its Mt. Rainier server-side flash cache-sharing technology. The FabricCache QLE10000 Fibre Channel host bus adapter enables pooling of cache across solid-state PCI Express cards.

QLogic refers to the FabricCache card as a "caching SAN adapter." Clustered servers running FabricCache adapters can access and utilize all of the combined caches in the cluster.

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GreenBytes launches virtual appliance to reduce storage for VDI

GreenBytes is rolling out a virtual appliance version of its IO Offload Engine hardware device built to store virtual desktop images more efficiently and transmit them faster.

VIO is software that runs inside VMware Inc.'s ESXi hypervisor. It offloads virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) swap disk and operating system I/O to flash storage, such as PCI Express cards, local solid-state storage disk, or networked storage solid-state storage controllers.

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Virident pumps up caching, sharing software for PCIe flash cards

Startup Virident Systems Inc. today launched a software suite to provide high availability, pooling of storage across servers and caching for its PCI Express (PCIe) flash cards.

The FlashMax Connect software suite includes three modules: vHA, vShare and vCache. The product's vHA (high availability) module allows server-side flash synchronous mirroring between two servers. Its vShare module enables remote access to partitioned PCIe flash resources to scale performance and capacity. As for vCache, the module allows the creation of transparent block cache on back-end direct-attached storage (DAS) devices and storage area networks (SANs) for write-back, write-through and write-around caching.

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Intel re-brands, expands SSD caching software picked up from Nevex

Intel Corp. today released a Linux version of the solid-state caching software it acquired from startup Nevex last year, rebranding the application as Intel Cache Acceleration Software. The software is a companion to Intel solid-state drives and PCI Express cards.

Cache Acceleration Software (CAS) for Linux 2.0 is the first new caching application released by Intel since it acquired Nevex last October. At the time of the acquisition, Nevex had a CacheWorks application for Windows, but the Linux version was still in beta. Intel released CacheWorks 2.0 -- already in the works when the acquisition closed -- last December. That product is now called CAS for Windows 2.0.

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STEC launches 2 TB SSD, PCIe card for bulk storage

STEC Inc. today became the first enterprise storage system provider to offer 2-terabyte enterprise solid-state storage devices today, with the introduction of its s1120 PCI Express card and s840 SAS solid-state drive.

The s1120 is a half-height, half-length PCI Express card (PCIe card) based on STEC's proprietary ASIC controller. The company claims its CellCare flash management technology uses advanced digital signal processing, or DSP, and media management techniques to improve flash endurance by up to 13 times. STEC's on-card data protection features include RAID-like Secure Array of Flash Element (SAFE) technology and full power backup.

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Nutanix offers scale-out storage options for its Complete Cluster

Nutanix Inc. today released a new series of its scale-out storage and compute cluster products, and updated its Nutanix Operating System. The new NX-3000 series lets customers scale storage and compute separately with performance nodes, and software advances include compression and replication for disaster recovery.

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QLogic prepares server-side flash cache adapter cards

QLogic Corp. today announced a new host bus adapter (HBA) technology that will allow better management and sharing of server-side flash solid-state storage caching resources across connected servers. QLogic's Mt. Rainier HBA looks like a typical adapter to the server operating system, but it combines the HBA driver, solid-state disk (SSD) driver and filter driver on one card.

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NextIO shares I/O resources via PCIe virtualization approach

Within the shrinking I/O virtualization market, NextIO Inc., of Austin, Texas, has staked its claim on PCIe virtualization. The company’s V-series product line uses high-speed PCI Express technology instead of InfiniBand to consolidate and share I/O resources at the top of the rack. Read more

Alternative approach to I/O virtualization: PCIe bus extenders

While Xsigo Systems Inc. takes a software virtualization approach to I/O virtualization, the majority of vendors in the I/O virtualization space take a different path – implementing on the server a PCI Express (PCIe) bus extender to a "card cage" device that houses standard, off-the-shelf I/O cards and adapters. This method has been adopted by companies such as Aprius Inc., NextIO Inc. and VirtenSys Inc.

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I/O virtualization products, standards reduce network infrastructure headaches

Virtualization and blade server technologies have enabled a generation of consolidated computing devices capable of cramming extraordinary computing power into smaller form factors. But the increased processing power per square inch has brought about a new I/O problem: The pipes can't move data fast enough to keep up with today's processors. To address that problem, new I/O virtualization products and standards are emerging to extend PCI Express (PCIe) pathways to separate I/O devices. This allows multiple physical servers and virtual machines (VMs) to share I/O resources.

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I/O virtualization: Approaches and implementations

There's a lot of hardware with lots of processing power in today's data center and, as a result, a server I/O bottleneck problem and a glut of cabling to support all of the hardware. I/O virtualization promises to solve the problem, but there's no consensus on the best approach. The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) has offered up two I/O virtualization specifications to help standardize I/O virtualization implementations, but vendors for the most part are developing products independent of the standards.

With those kinds of dynamics at play, you'll need to study the landscape closely before wading into an I/O virtualization project. Check out our tutorial to find out about the approaches different vendors are taking to I/O virtualization, the pros and cons of each product, how I/O virtualization differs from Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and how the PCI-SIG standards work.

I/O virtualization products, standards reduce network infrastructure headaches
Virtualization and blade server technologies have enabled a generation of consolidated computing devices capable of cramming extraordinary computing power into smaller form factors. But the increased processing power per square inch has brought about a new I/O problem: The pipes can't move data fast enough to keep up with today's processors. To address that problem, new I/O virtualization products and standards are emerging to extend PCI Express (PCIe) pathways to separate I/O devices. This allows multiple physical servers and virtual machines (VMs) to share I/O resources.
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Xsigo's I/O virtualization approach: Software virtualization via I/O Director
Xsigo Systems Inc.'s approach to I/O virtualization is similar to Microsoft Corp.'s and VMware Inc.'s server virtualization methods. Xsigo's VP780 I/O Director consolidates multiprotocol I/O server traffic via high-speed InfiniBand links. This software I/O virtualization approach -- one of two basic methodologies -- heavily favors server virtualization environments. Jon Toor, Xsigo's vice president of marketing, said that approximately 90% of the company's 60 or so production deployments are virtualized server environments, mostly VMware shops.
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Alternative approach to I/O virtualization: PCIe bus extenders
While Xsigo Systems Inc., takes a software virtualization approach to I/O virtualization, the majority of vendors in the I/O virtualization space take a different path – implementing on the server a PCI Express (PCIe) bus extender to a "card cage" device that houses standard, off-the-shelf I/O cards and adapters. This method has been adopted by companies such as Aprius Inc., NextIO Inc. and VirtenSys Inc.
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I/O virtualization and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE): How do they differ?
Since I/O virtualization and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) technology both aim to reduce the physical infrastructure at the server/network interconnect, users may be confused about how Cisco Systems Inc.'s Unified Computing System (UCS) and FCoE support in the company's Nexus switches play in this space. In addition, many IT organizations may find the choice between the Xsigo Systems Inc. and PCIe approaches a difficult one.
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