Faster Data Delivery With LSI and Solid Access

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CHALLENGE

• Companies producing and consuming more data at a faster rate
• Reliance on larger amounts of disk storage, requiring additional I/O performance
• I/O performance unable to keep up with server demands

SOLUTIONS

• Solid Access USSD 200 designed for mainstream applications and non-disruptive implementation
• First SSD with a 3Gb/s SAS interface
• Includes LSI SAS HBA solution designed to revolutionize I/O performance with 72,000 IOPS random and 707MB/s transfer rate via one wide SAS port
• Optional FC solution with 3,600 MB/s aggregated bandwidth via multi FC links (full duplex) and 95,000 IOPS via ONE FC port

RESULTS

• Simplified data center with mission critical reliability
• Improved efficiency of application servers by recovering CPU cycles formerly lost in I/O wait loops
• Most flexible interfacing/multiprotocol access with proven best-of-breed components
• Application acceleration and rapid upgrade integration

LSI SAS PCI Express Storage Adapter Combined With Solid Access Universal Solid State Disk Delivers Record Setting Performance Benchmarks

CASE STUDY
Multi-level Partnership
Solid Access Technologies (www.solidaccess.com) delivers unmatched I/O acceleration and universal connectivity at the lowest price available for enterprise-level ultra fast solid state disk (SSD) storage. The primary difference between Solid Access and its competitors is a novel design architecture that achieves efficiency on multiple levels and breaks the cost barrier that had previously restricted SSD applications. By procuring proven industry standard components on a just-in-time basis and manufacturing to order according to strict specifications, the company’s business model involves minimal real estate, manufacturing, overhead, and inventory costs. This translates into a fully functional, reliable, compact, plug-and-play SSD with unsurpassed performance that is now affordable and readily deployed in mainstream IT applications.

LSI was first to market with Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) components and has shipped more than two million SAS integrated circuit storage components to the OEM server market. LSI SAS offerings are unmatched in the industry and its portfolio addresses the full spectrum of server, workstation, and enterprise storage architecture requirements for implementing SAS solutions. By integrating proven LSI SAS hBAs into its Universal Solid State Disk (USSD) 200 solution, Solid Access has been able to reach record-setting performance benchmarks.

“With our proven and reliable SAS hBAs ideal for servers and workstations needing ultra high-speed data transfer, LSI helped Solid Access achieve a leadership position in the solid state solid state disk arena,” said John Roeser, director of channel sales at LSI. “The novel architecture of the USSD 200 allows rapid adoption of the latest industry technology advances. Nothing demonstrates such capability better then the quick to market integration of LSI hBA solutions.”

SAS Enables Product Innovation
Data in enterprise environments have continued to explode. The resulting demands on storage interconnect requirements have led to the development of SAS. SAS is complementary to Parallel SCSI and combines the enterprise features of Parallel SCSI and Fibre Channel with the efficiencies of the Serial ATA interconnect. Key customer benefits include enterprise class robustness, investment protection in compatible SCSI software, and the choice of direct-attach storage devices (Serial ATA or SAS). SAS leverages Serial ATA interconnect technology so that SAS can be compatible with lowercost Serial ATA drives, simplify cable, connector and backplane designs, and increase support and bandwidth scalability. This simplified routing is enabling a new generation of dense devices allowing solutions to scale where traditional parallel SCSI cannot, due to cabling and voltage challenges. SAS provides a level of flexibility to meet the next generation enterprise storage needs.

Seeking to respond to customers’ demand for faster data delivery, Solid Access selected the LSI SAS3442E-R and SAS3800 SAS HBAs when developing its USSD 200 ultra-fast data storage system. These four-port internal/four-port external SAS/SATA PCI Express storage adapters provide 300MB/s bandwidth (600MB/s, full duplex) on each port for combined throughput of up to 2.4GB/s. The storage adapters support multi-volume OS independent integrated RAID 0, 1, 1E and 10E without the need for special drivers and feature PCI Express connectivity, removing the host bus bottleneck from the parallel PCI buses.

Constructing High Performance Storage Systems
Designed to accelerate large-scale databases and enterprise transaction intensive applications, the USSD 200 is comprised of an array of high-speed ECC memory chips with no moving parts in the data path, eliminating the rotational and seek latency of conventional hard disks. The USSD 200 10 microsecond data access time increases application server efficiency by recovering CPU cycles formerly lost in I/O wait loops.

“By incorporating proven LSI SAS HBAs, we were able to reach record-setting performance benchmarks for the USSD 200,” said Tomas Havrda, Solid Access Managing Partner. “Together LSI and Solid Access are responding to customer demands of faster data delivery by providing the next generation of storage subsystem solutions.”

USSD 200 is a plug-and-play solid state device emulating hard disk logic and equipped with data retention HDDs and UPS for automatic backup in case of power failure. The USSD solution, which doesn’t require any special drivers or application interventions, supports all major operating systems.

The ultra-fast SSD industry was one of the last ‘closed’ areas that relied on proprietary hardware components. This existed in the face of almost every computer IT hardware platform moving from proprietary to open. By moving enterprise SSD technology on industry-based, industry-standard building blocks, the Solid Access USSD stands alone as the price/performance leader in the SSD industry, opening up the path to bring SSD performance into mainstream markets.

“Beyond USSD delivering unmatched access time and IOPS performance, we benefit from LSI’s commanding market share in terms of interoperability. Whenever we encounter a customer’s host system using an interface that does not produce plug-and-play interopability, we simply provide an LSI Logic HBA for the customers host system and the problem is solved,“ added Havrda.

Enabling differentiating system-level products that can support new revenue generating offerings, the Solid Access USSD 200 can be ordered in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB in a 2U format. For enterprises seeking to reduce administrative costs through centralized management of storage and improved availability, the USSD 200 is also SAN-ready and can be seamlessly integrated into a tiered storage environment scalable to terabytes of capacity with switched Fibre Channel fabrics.

“By incorporating proven LSI SAS HBAs, we were able to reach record-setting performance benchmarks for our Universal Solid State Disk (USSD) 200. Together LSI and Solid Access are responding to customer demands of faster data delivery by providing the next generation of storage subsystem solution”
- Tomas Havrda Managing Partner Solid Access

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Article.