LSI And Area Data Systems Offer Broad Set Of Storage Technologies More Cost-Effectively

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CHALLENGE

• Enterprise storage requirements are escalating
• SATA hard drives still offer a compelling cost-capacity advantage
• IT managers must minimize total cost of storage ownership

SOLUTIONS

• LSI interposer cards into Area Data Systems DNS-1200 2U/12- Bay and DNS-1400 4U/24-Bay storage arrays to align SAS and SATA technologies
• Customized Area Data System storage arrays built with LSI SAS/ SATA MegaRAID controllers or SAS Host Bus Adapters

RESULTS

• Scalable systems with SAS and SATA functionality
• Cost effective high bandwidth processing
• Readily available Area Data Systems storage solutions with LSI products can be purchased through Area Data Systems sales representatives or online

LSI And Area Data Systems Offer Broad Set of Storage Technologies More Cost-Effectively

CASE STUDY
Multi-level Partnership
Storage capacity requirements are growing at an exponential rate. Storage consolidation, server virtualization, digital content creation and regulatory compliance are all key factors in the booming data industry.

Area Data Systems has a twenty year track record of successfully delivering its customers the most advanced storage and server technology available. Area Data Systems is a leader in internal and external storage solutions. Its quality portfolio includes LSI Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) host Bus Adapters and LSI MegaRAID storage adapters. LSI continues to collaborate with companies such as Area Data Systems to further advance SAS market penetration and deliver the benefits that SAS has to offer.

“Since the technology’s inception, LSI has played a critical role in the progression of SAS, and today we clearly see market adoption accelerating,” said John Roeser, director of channel sales at LSI. “With LSI SAS technology, Area Data Systems can offer customers one system to meet primary and nearline data storage requirements. This simplifies storage operations and reduces costs through storage consolidation and fewer hardware/software products to buy and manage.”

SAS: Designing Storage Technology for the Future, Today
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is the logical evolution of SCSI, retaining SCSI’s long-established software environment. With enterprise storage requirements escalating and becoming more complex, factors such as larger capacity, greater density, security, scalability and accessibility are more critical than ever. Enterprise data storage must be online all the time, fulfill requests from numerous users simultaneously, allow for constant growth and expansion and be maintained during operation. SAS leverages the proven SCSI technologies that customers expect in data center environments, providing robust solutions and generational compatibility. SAS is based on a serial interface, allowing for increased device support and bandwidth scalability, as well as reducing the overhead impact that challenges today’s storage environments

Aligning SAS and SATA technologies to serve storage users who need large capacities at a lower cost provides greater choice to the industry. Since SATA hard drives still offer a compelling cost-capacity advantage over the alternative Fibre Channel or SAS drives, storage OEMs can significantly reduce costs by incorporating SATA drives into nearline storage systems without sacrificing performance.

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.

Incorporating SATA drives into Enterprise storage is simplified by adding an Interposer to the environment. Interposer’s electronics give addressability and also a second port that makes the drive clusterable. The LSI AAMUX product line builds in other features as well, including acceleration of SATA spin-up times, enhanced data signal and additional error recovery.

“We gain a time-to-market advantage and save significant engineering resources by integrating LSI interposer cards into our unique DNS-1200 2U/12-Bay and DNS-1400 4U/24-Bay JBOD storage systems,” said Sean McClelland, Channel Marketing Manager for Area Data Systems. “The LSI interposer cards increase system reliability and performance with enterprise-class features like dual active-active SAS I/O modules, advanced signal conditioning, and more resilient error handling”.

Designing Highly Reliable, High Capacity Storage Applications
For customers seeking large capacity storage solutions, Area Data Systems creates custom modularized storage systems that can handle capacities ranging from 6 terabytes to 96 Terabytes, depending on the drive size. Area Data Systems scalable and feature rich storage solutions allow customers to maximize their return on investment and incorporate a pay as you grow philosophy.

System builders using the combination of LSI SAS adapters or HBAs and Area Data System storage arrays also have the flexibility to integrate either SAS or SATA devices and slash the costs associated with supporting two separate interfaces. Designers using a single enclosure with SAS and SATA functionality are building to maximize performance, scalability, and affordability. Tiered storage (Combining SAS for online and SATA for near-line storage) is fast becoming the standard for most video storage applications.

Area Data Systems excels at building tiered storage solutions that can be easily integrated into any business environment. Area Data Systems JBOD’s makes use of the LSI MegaRAID® SAS 8888ELP adapter which maximizes I/O performance and bandwidth processing. MegaRAID is the preferred choice of OEMs, ODMs, system integrators and resellers worldwide for its superior performance, ease of use, lightning fast array initialization and advanced configuration capabilities. With an integrated 500MHz PowerPC engine and industry leading 667MHz write cache, the LSI 8888ELP x8 PCI express SAS Raid adapter delivers astonishing performance numbers. With over 1200/2400MB/s I/O throughput, streaming video and video surveillance backup applications are no longer constricted to hardware limitations.

LSI offers a complete product line of internal/external HBA adapters for direct attached storage (DAS) connectivity and storage servers. Area Data Systems utilizes the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8708ELP to create a robust and cost effective storage server with powerful internal/external RAID capabilities making it ideal for applications such as video on demand(VOD) and surveillance video backup. For a tiered storage solution with up to 8 Hot Swappable SAS or SATA drives, Area Data Systems often deploys the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8708ELP.

The MegaRAID Management Suite™ provides the essential software tools to efficiently manage MegaRAID products, whether deployed in an enterprise or small business. LSI offers a collection of applications and tools including a pre-boot setup utility as well a full spectrum of online RAID management utilities. Area Data Systems makes the most of this suite of applications that allow its customers to efficiently configure, monitor and manage factors such as enclosure temperature, power supply, cooling module and drive failure that are critical to external storage. The LSI partner program enhances Area Data Systems product line to create a total solution.

Together, LSI and Area Data Systems are delivering solutions with flexibility, performance, and reliability at an unprecedented level. Now enterprise-class storage with SAS technology is available at a cost that makes it affordable for any type of application.

“LSI clearly has the fastest SAS chips in the industry. The superior performance of LSI solutions is enabling us to become a tier one storage solution provider,”
- Sean McClelland Channel Marketing Manager Area Data Systems

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Article.