| searching
for Storage Area Networks? |
how to find SAN content more easily
Editor:-
I first published a directory of Fibre-channel adapters way back in 1994
- as one of the many buyers guides within the
SPARC Product
Directory.
When I moved all the storage stuff here to
StorageSearch.com in 1998 - SANs were one of the most popular subjects - and I
expanded our coverage to include many other topics which mushroomed around the
SAN space such as routers, switches, GBICs,
SSDs, training, security
etc
Today in 2011 - with hundreds of companies in the SAN market the
old long lists which used to be on this page are no longer useful for helping
you find SAN content.
Instead I suggest you can use site search below
to find SAN related vendors, guides and articles - or click
on this link to get a prepulated search for SAN which you can extend by
adding your own terms. |
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In recent years I've been using "FC" as
an abbreviation for "fibre-channel" - particularly when it comes to
adapters and drives. So using FC in your searches will also get you useful
results:- as for example in this link
FC
SSDs (search).
Because I've written about the SAN market since the
technology started I've been consistent about the way I used terms in news
stories and vendor profiles.
Therefore
NAS and
iSCSI - which started as
much later ethernet related terms are not going to get scrambled with your SAN
search results - unless there's a good reason.
The exception is "IP
SAN" - which is a term I resisted using for many years - but has become
widely adopted by vendors as a (they think it's cool but I think it's
misleading) alternative to the perfectly good legacy terms which existed before.
In
the early 2000s I started a list of SAN software vendors. That became irrelevant
as a directory after a few years when it became clear that most serious
enterprise software vendors had to support storage networks of all types
otherwise they weren't doing anything useful in the market.
Although
all the content here on the mouse site is transitioning to
solid state
storage - you'll still find hundreds of articles and thousands of news
stories about traditional FC storage products on this site by using the
searches above. | | |
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classic SAN articles from
storage history
SAN Applications
SAN History's 1st Decade
A Storage
Architecture Guide
Tuning SANs with Solid
State Disks |
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| SAN news |
QLogic launches FabricCache
PCIe SSD
Editor:- March 22, 2013 - QLogic yesterday
entered the enterprise
SSD market (in the PCI
SSD and SSD ASAPs
segments) with the
launch
its first product - the
FabricCache
10000 Series adapter (pdf) - which provides transparent sharable and
clusterable caching for FC SANs.
The 2 card set (upto 400GB flash,
and 2x 8Gbps FC ports) can deliver upto 310,000 initiator IOPS and
supports upto 2,048 concurrent logins.
Imation acquires Nexsan
Editor:- January 2, 2013 -
Imation today
announced
it has acquired Nexsan
(which among other things is in the
rackmount hybrid
SSD ASAPs market) for
$120 million.
making history at the US Presidential Debate
Editor:-
October 22, 2012 - supporting the US
Presidential Debate taking place today at Lynn University is a high
availability
hybrid
storage array from Tegile
Systems.
"Having won the university's request for proposal
process earlier this year we are diligently working to assemble the technology
that will bring the debate to millions of people and households," said Rob Commins, VP of
marketing, Tegile Systems. "We are honored to be a part of American history
in this important way."
future SSD capacity ratios in the server, SAN and archive?
Editor:-
September 14, 2012 - Have you ever wondered... how much SSD storage should sit
inside servers compared to being located on the SAN?
Obviously the
exact ratio depends on the diverse spread of your data processing activities and
the type of business you're engaged in.
At the extreme boundary
cases the answer will be different if you're Google (say) compared to if you're
an international bank.
For most enterprises the ratio will be something in between.
But
if you're looking for an ideal magic number - I think an interesting debating
point is to look at what people already do in HPC (high performance computing)
apps.
In these situations users have already tried to optimize
performance and the inevitable constraint of cost - but the starting premise is
to place weight on performance.
The storage ratios which emerged
from a recently published
HPC survey
by Intersect360 Research were
- 36% of storage in compute servers
- 63% of storage at the site level (NAS or SAN)
Now I have
to remind you that those numbers were for storage and not for SSDs. But in not
too many years from now when all enterprise storage will be solid state - the
SSDs will still follow application and performance heirarchies too - and I think
the split shown in that report is a reasonable analog to describe
enterprise SSDs in the
silos from the ultrafast through to the fast-enough.
But what about
bulk archive storage?
That will be SSD too -
it almost goes without
saying - but if you try to estimate how much SSD storage will be bulk
archive (performing similar roles to old style
tape libraries and
VTLs) compared to active
SSD storage - during the next decade - some curious factors creep in.
Today
- in legacy storage systems - archive backups and storage are high multiples (in
capacity terms) of active working / online storage. You need copies of stuff for
legal and compliance
reasons, for backup,
disaster recovery etc.
And in the next 5 years or so that may continue to be the case - because it
takes a long time for enterprise architectures to change.
But as we
move towards the pure SSD driven economy - most enterprises will be creating
new data faster than they ever did before (1 month of new date could be more
than the whole year before) and at the same time the inefficiency of
architectures like RAID
will be replaced by the new efficiencies of
large controller
architectures - like XtremIO
and Skyera. I'm
tempted to say cloud
-like - but that would be inaccurate - because in raw implementation - there are
both very efficient and some inefficient clouds too.
I'm tempted to
think that the combined result of these 2 factors coming together will be to
shrink down the ratio of raw online to bulk archive storage to one - in best
of breed enterprises - (or maybe even less than one - because of
dedupe,
compression etc).
Are there any useful consequences of any of these
insights?
It can be usefule for sizing markets. One example came up on
the same day I was writing this article - related to the possible
cannibalization of 2.5"
PCIe SSDs (including 2.5" SCSIe SSDs) relative to
SAS. But there are many
others too.
Fusion-io does a few new things
Editor:- August 2,
2012 - the performance and strategic importance of
SSD software was
reinforced in 2 recent announcements by Fusion-io.
Yesterday
- FIO
launched
its new ION software
- which is a toolkit for bulding your own network compatible
SSD rack by
adding some Fusion-io SSD cards and their new software to any leading server.
The concept isn't entirely new - because oems have been doing this
with various different brands of
PCIe SSDs for years
and this is a well
established alternative market segment for PCIe SSDs. What is new - is
that it makes the whole thing much easier.
Fusion-io says this new
software product "delivers breakthrough performance over
Fibre Channel,
InfiniBand and
iSCSI using standard
protocols." (1 million random IOPs (4kB), 6GB/s throughput and 60
microseconds latency in a 1U rack.)
Earlier this week FIO
announced
it was collaborating on getting interoperability in server-side flash and
caching software
with NetApp. It's
easier now to write a list of major storage systems oems who aren't doing
something significant with FIO.
CWCDS offers 5TB version of SANbric SSD JBOD
Editor:-
June 19, 2012 - today Curtiss-Wright
Controls Defense Solutions announced a new version of its
FC compatible SSDs the
SANbric
which supports just under 5TB and weighs about 5 lbs and is designed for
deployment in high speed rugged
data streaming apps such as on-board wide body aircraft, and helicopter
platforms.
waiting for the true arrival of the PCIe FT SAN?
Editor:-
February 9, 2012 - What's a storage network?
I thought I knew the
answer to that question. Probably you do too. But the topology possibilities
enabled by a new generation of PCIe chips will change the way that servers and
solid state storage can interact - and open up a new fast lane for data. These
concepts are explored in a new article in
Who's who in SSD? - PLX.
And why do you need to know about PCIe chips? Remember there was a
time when no one
cared very much about SSD controllers too. ...click to read the article
highest density FC SAN SLC SSD racks with no SPOF
Editor:-
December 6, 2011 - Texas Memory Systems
today
announced
imminent availability of the
RamSan-720
- a 4 port (FC/IB) 1U
rackmount SSD
which provides 10TB of usable 2D (FPGA implemented)
RAID protected and hot
swappable - SLC
capacity with 100/25 microseconds R/W latency (with all protections in
place) delivering 400K IOPS (4KB), 5GB/s throughput - with no single point of
failure (at $20K/TB approx list).
The new SSD uses a
regular RAM cache
flash architecture which in the event of
sudden power
loss has an ultra reliable battery array which holds up the SSD power for 30
seconds while automatically backing
up all data in flight and translation tables to nonvolatile flash storage. On
power up - the SSD is ready for full speed operation in less than a minute.
Aimed
at HA tier 1 storage markets - the RamSan-720 consumes only 300-400 W - which
makes it practical for high end users to install nearly 1/2
petabyte of SSD
storage in a single cabinet - without having to worry about the secondary
reliability and
data integrity
risks which can arise from high temperature build-ups in such enclosures.
The high density and low power consumption of this SSD made it
feasible to stuff over 400TB of usable SSD capacity into a single cabinet
without fear of over
heating.
finally SAN-bound - Fusion-io inside Kaminario's K2
Editor:-
September 13, 2011 - Kaminario
announced
it has integrated Fusion-io's
PCIe SSDs as a new
option in its
K2
FC SAN compatible SSD
product line (which was until now
RAM SSD only) to
provide flash and
hybrid storage
options.
Using the new options the K2 can provide from 3 to 30TB of
non-stop, protected and self healing, blade server based flash storage in 4U
to 12U of rack space with R/W latency of 260 / 150 microseconds at a list price
of $30K / TB. ...click to
read comments and analysis
SANRAD launches front loadable PCIe SSD accelerators
Editor:-
August 31, 2011 - SANRAD
today introduced front loadable PCIe flash SSD accelerators as options in
its
V-Switch storage appliances
enabling upto 4TB of flash, together with
2x10GE networking and
2x8Gb FC, all in a single
1U rackmount appliance (or 10TB in 2U).
The unique front-panel installation allows for quick, easy maintenance
and upgradeability in the data center. It enables a "pay as you grow"
approach, allowing customers to add or replace PCIe flash modules without
opening the appliance, similar to the way
HDDs are added to a
server.
SAN Shared File Systems with SSDs
Editor:- July 11,
2011 -
SAN
Shared File Systems with SSDs is the subject of a new blog from Texas Memory Systems.
Author
Jamon Bowen
says in the article - "There is a new option that I have seen
getting deployed more and more often: using high capacity SSDs and a
SAN shared file system. A
SAN shared filesystem provides the locking to allow multiple servers to directly
access the block storage concurrently."
Editor's comments:-
The "new option" above is narrative license - because I know that
TMS has been doing this for years - but this type of configuration is more
common now - because of
declining SSD costs.
I like this article for its conceptual purity (sticks to the theme and
doesn't waffle on about SANs or SSDs) - and it has a nice picture too. ...read
the article
Oracle acquires Pillar
Editor:- June 29, 2011 -
Oracle today
announced it has
entered into an agreement to acquire Pillar Data Systems -
which was already majority owned by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
Editor's
comments:- I guess I'd say - So what? This simply ends a fiction which no
one seriously believed in. Pillar was hampered by its ownership which meant
that it could be yanked in any direction at a moment's notice. Pulling the
storage skunkworks inside the Oracle corporate fold will work better for
customers and as a business - even if it may upset some internal stakeholders.
EMC will enter PCIe SSD market
Editor:- May 9, 2011
- EMC today
announced
new strategies related to the
SSD market.
Among
other things EMC said it has created a flash business unit and will enter the
PCIe SSD market later
this year. The company indicated that its run rate of shipping flash storage
array capacity in 2011 is approximately 3x the level it had achieved in
2010.
Dataram doubles memory in XcelaSAN
Editor:- April 6,
2011 - Dataram
has doubled the RAM cache available in its
XcelaSAN
(2U rackmount fibre-channel SAN
SSD accelerator) to
256GB (the system price is approx $75,000).
XcelaSAN delivers up to
30x transparent R/W acceleration to attached
disk storage arrays with a
high-availability architecture (internal performance is
upto
450,000 IOPS). Unlike vanilla SSD accelerators, XcelaSAN dynamically
caches high I/O activity application data when it is needed, to support multiple
applications many times larger than the cache itself.
"With the
new capacity upgrade, the XcelaSAN storage optimization appliance allows
customers to dramatically accelerate more applications with a cost-effective,
easy to install storage appliance," said
Jason
Caulkins, Chief Technologist, Dataram. "The added cache capacity
allows customers to add cache tiering to a wider range of applications in
addition to their mission critical applications, resulting in improved
performance across their entire business."
Editor's comments:- when Dataram launched the XcelaSAN in
September 2009 -
they published precious little performance data and they didn't offer a simple
high availability option. Now with benefit of customer experience and a
reworking of the design Dataram has a lot more info which describes the product
including a useful (and overdue)
FAQs
page. Another factor which has changed in the meantime is that more than 20
other manufacturers now offer
ASAPs (Auto-tuning
SSD Accelerated Pools of storage) with their own flavors of interface, form
factor etc making this a confusing market for potential buyers.
The
simple pitch for the Dataram ASAP is:- it works with your existing FC SAN
storage arrays and installs in about an hour. Because it does the hot spot
tuning automatically it suits medium sized enterprises who may only need to buy
a single system. These users are not so attractive to high end SSD oems who
for business reasons prefer focusing their technical and sales talent on
customers with high multiple repeat business potential.
One amusing
thing for me in seeing today's news about doubling the memory in the XcelaSAN is
that Dataram has for decades been the first memory maker to offer
increased
memory capacity for leading servers. Now the company is doing the same thing
to itself.
NetApp acquires Engenio
Editor:- March 9, 2011 -
Network Appliance
announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the Engenio external
storage systems business of LSI for $480 million.
The close is anticipated to occur in approximately 60 days subject to
customary closing conditions.
Engenio will enable NetApp to address
emerging and fast-growing market segments such as
video, including
full-motion video capture and digital video surveillance, as well as high
performance computing applications, such as genomics sequencing and scientific
research. NetApp has the channel reach and customer relationships today that
require high performance and big bandwidth capabilities that will be well served
by Engenio's storage platform. NetApp says these segments are expected to
collectively represent a $5
billion incremental market opportunity by 2014.
Editor's
comments:- LSI has been trying to sell off Engenio since 2004. NetApp will
love them more. For a brief time this past week - searches for Engenio exceeded
that for "SSD". In the previous decade over
500 leading storage
companies were acquired, changed name or went bust.
Xiotech enters FC ASAP market
Editor:- January 31,
2011 - Xiotech
is the latest company to join the crowding
SSD ASAP market with
the
launch
of its Hybrid ISE - a
3U FC rack with
14TB of capacity and 60,000
IOPS
performance which internally uses a mixture of
2.5" SSDs and
HDDs.
Similarly
to many other ASAP vendors - Xiotech claims its systems has "fully
automated set-and-forget simplicity". The company says that using ROI
calculations from weighted I/O counts, automated tiering begins within 1 minute
of I/O and continues to manage the performance requirements of applications in
real-time.
Editor's comments:- in its
Jan 2011 blog - Xiotech
disclosed that a customer survey it had done about SSD usage revealed "only
9% in-use or currently evaluating the use of SSD. Another 8% responded
that SSDs were in 2011 plans. Of those who've adopted/currently testing SSDs,
over half were using SSDs as part of a storage array. Less that 25% were
deploying memory cards added to servers."
Those figures indicate the
huge upside
which still remains for the SSD market.
Inside Texas Memory Systems' 8GB/s FC SSD
Editor:-
January 26, 2011 -Texas
Memory Systems today announced the availability of 8Gbps fibre-channel
interfaces for its
RamSan-630 - fast 10TB
3U rackmount SLC
SSDs.
Each unit can be configured with upto 10 independent 8Gb FC
ports for a total data transfer rate of 8 GBytes / sec. Ports can be mixed -
with the previously available (and 25% faster)
InfiniBand.
Editor's
comments:- I interviewed Jamon Bowen,
Director of Sales Engineering for TMS - and learned a lot about the internal
design and architecture of this SSD which the company hasn't revealed
before. Click here
to read - key performance enablers inside the RamSan-630.
the future of enterprise data storage
Editor:-
January 23, 2011 -
the
future of data storage is the lofty sounding but aptly chosen title of a
new article published online today in Broadcast Engineering -
written by Zsolt
Kerekes editor of StorageSearch.com
(that's me).
It's a completely new article which synthesizes and
integrates concepts from several futuristic articles which have already
appeared here on the mouse site and wraps them into a cohesive whole. Anyone
who reads it will get a clear idea of where the incremental changes they read
about in storage news pages (like this one) are likely to end up. ...read
the article
A new way of looking at the Enterprise SSD market
Editor:-
October 4, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
recently published a new article -
Legacy versus New
Dynasty - A new way of looking at the Enterprise SSD market
It
proposes a new classification method for "enterprise SSDs" which
will help you get through the jungle of new SSD web content - and see all
new products in a new light. |
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