Features - Storage Innovations:

ASTUTE INTRODUCES PIONEERING VIRTUALIZATION STORAGE SOFTWARE

Astute Networks, an industry leader and designer of intelligent silicon-based storage solutions, has announced the introduction of storage virtualization software that significantly decreases time-to-market for storage OEMs developing intelligent Storage Area Network (SAN) systems.

In combination with Astute's Pericles, one of the highest performance intelligent storage processors (ISP) in the market, advanced storage services such as next generation storage pooling, data migration, mirroring, high availability, snapshot and LUN masking can now be implemented in scaleable, high-port density storage systems without performance degradation.

Next generation software for advanced storage services will support an architecture in which the control path is separated from the data path enabling high-performance intelligent SAN systems that scale to thousands of ports. With this separation, a single control path can control multiple data paths, providing scalability and reducing operating costs. Data path processing is performed by an Astute intelligent storage processor (ISP) to achieve unprecedented port densities as high as 12 ports per chip.

Astute Networks has released two turnkey software APIs, corresponding to control path and data path processing. The Fast-Path Virtualization Module (FVM) utilizes the internal Pericles hardware storage protocol engines for data path processing, mapping virtual to physical storage volumes. The Host Virtualization Module (HVM) is control path software that abstracts the FVM, providing a single, easy to use interface with C-level primitives that OEMs can use to implement their advanced storage service applications.

"Storage OEMs can now offer a new class of advanced storage services to SAN users as part of their future product offerings. With the release of our storage virtualization APIs, we've been able to accelerate the development by our storage customers who have expressed a desire to have product this year," said Allyn Pon, Astute Networks' vice president of customer marketing.

"The Astute Networks' architecture plays extremely well with the next generation of data storage software," said Rich Krueger, vice president of market development at Incipient, a data storage software provider. "Astute's technology is a critical enabler for efficiently delivering on the promises of simplifying the management of storage area networks," Krueger added.

About the Pericles Intelligent Storage Processor

Combining parallel processor architecture with embedded hardware acceleration engines for handling stateful protocols, Pericles leads the field in storage processor performance with an aggregate, full duplex bandwidth greater than 10 Gbps. The hardware engines not only accelerate any storage protocol but also speed up functions used to support virtualization; including synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, data migration, replication, backup, snapshot, failover, and real time traffic monitoring. Dual SPI-4.2 ports allow traffic to flow through the network to a switching fabric, a key requirement for blades or platforms.

Astute's OEM customers include manufacturers of intelligent SAN switches, virtualization platforms, iSCSI gateways, FCIP gateways, storage networking devices, multi-protocol SAN switches and storage disk arrays. In addition to SAN infrastructure systems, Pericles can also be used for other intelligent networking applications including intrusion detection systems, Layer 7 switches, server load balancing, blade server systems, stateful firewalls and SSL acceleration platforms.