Features - Storage Innovations:

TREBIA INTRODUCES HIGH PERFORMANCE iSCSI STO NET PROCESSOR

Trebia Networks Inc, a leader in the development of system-on-silicon solutions for storage networking applications, has announced the SNP-1000L processor designed to offer OEMs a quick-to-develop, high-performance solution for iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity. The chip is designed to enable "bolt-on" iSCSI connectivity for existing Fibre Channel products. On-chip hardware includes a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) port and a pair of Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI ports. Complemented by Trebia's SANPort software suite, the combination of SNP-1000L hardware plus supporting and development software is aimed at accelerated time-to-market.

"SAN industry OEMs are looking for high performance and rapid development, and the SNP-1000L delivers both," said Nik Bahram, vice president of engineering, Trebia Networks. "Its foundation consists of a SAN protocol processor and a TCP offload engine. The former supports wire-speed termination of iSCSI flows, and the latter minimizes CPU load. The resulting flow-through design translates commands on a packet data unit basis resulting in low latency and high performance. The SNP-100L delivers the industry's highest iSCSI results, packing more than enough performance to match Fibre Channel endpoint performance," Bahram explained. "And, the chip architecture and supporting software make development a snap, especially for adding bolt-on iSCSI to any 2 Gbps Fibre Channel interface. The result is faster time-to-market."

Narrowing the cost gap without compromising on performance

Before the advent of iSCSI, networked storage came in two very different flavors. Storage Area Networks (SANs) were based on Fibre Channel networks and block transfers. Network Attached Storage (NAS) used familiar LAN and Internet network technology but transferred the storage as files. SAN was the higherperformance, more-costly networked storage solution; NAS made use of economic LAN and Internet technology. The iSCSI standard made it possible to support SAN block transfers over LAN/Internet networks, reducing the dependence on, and cost of, Fibre Channel SAN implementations.

Trebia's SNP-1000L processor is designed to enable the Fibre Channel-to-iSCSI conversion process. The new storage network processor integrates a Fibre medium-access-controller (MAC), and two Gigabit Ethernet MACs. To build a system, one adds a Fibre Channel serializer/deserializer (SERDES) to the Fibre MAC, and two Gigabit Ethernet PHYs to the Gigabit Ethernet MACs. The SNP- 1000L's 66 MHz/64-bit PCI interface simplifies its use in an add-in network card, and its SDRAM controller permits tailoring its performance by adding DDR SDRAM to the board.

"In essence, with the addition of a host microprocessor, some SDRAM, a SERDES chip, and PHYs, one has a complete iSCSI network card," Bahram explained

Industry Standard Compliance And Interoperability

Industry standards are well known time and cost savers, and the SNP-1000L is based on key Fibre Channel, SAN, and iSCSI standards. It is SANMark certified and UNH IOL tested for interoperability. In addition, it meets all iSCSI specifications. Hardware-based accelerators (HBAs) built with the SNP- 1000L are guaranteed to interoperate with SNP-1000-based gateways and switches, and other ICs that comply with the aforementioned standards.