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Superiority of Fibre Channel TechnologyFast & Flexible Tiered Storage

October 2005Revision 2

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Information Lifecycle Management Requires Tiered Storage

Offline

Nearline

Online

Enterprise-Class HDDs

High Performance & Reliability

Nearline Optimized HDDs

Nearline & Temporary Retention

Tape Backup

Long-Term Storage

ILM Tier Storage Tier TypeMatching Data To Most Appropriate Storage Type Is The ILM Enabler

The SNIA Data Management Forum (DMF) definition for ILM reads:

“Information Lifecycle Management is comprised of the policies, processes, practices and tools use to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition. Information is aligned with business processes through management of policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, information and data.”

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• Established, Trusted and Ubiquitous– Designed from the beginning for high throughput

datacom applications with minimal latencies and guaranteed delivery

– Supports all storage connections from disk drives to datacenters to campuses to 100km remote sites

– The trusted and deployed technology in Fortune 500 for Mission Critical applications

– Leading in providing the SMB SAN market with Enterprise class storage reliability

– Thousands of proven reference designs

Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

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• Fastest Speeds– 4 GFC Fibre Channel connectivity solutions available today

• Signals ramp in market adoption for next generation storage infrastructure solutions

– 8 GFC and 16 GFC Fibre Channel on the horizon

• Flexible for Tiered Storage– Attaches a variety of performance and nearline-optimized

solutions, including SATA drives for ILM– Backwards and forwards compatible between speeds– Enables intermixing 4 GFC, 2 GFC & 1 GFC technologies

without slowdown in any point in the system– Unparalleled ability to seamlessly scale to higher capacity,

performance and reliability, availability and serviceability– Proven interoperability through standards compliant

implementations• Plugests since 1996• Active T11 Interoperability Profiles• Multiple active interoperability test facilities

Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

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• Continuous Progress– Provides investment protection for already

installed infrastructures• Preserves existing, extensive software and

hardware base– Continual specification enhancements to

offer new solutions to meet evolving market needs

• Speed improvements (Moore’s law since 1992)• Solution enhancements• Lower cost solutions

– SATA Attachment– Nearline Optimized FC

Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

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Fibre Channel Is The Dominant Solution for External Storage Systems

0.0

2,000.0

4,000.0

6,000.0

8,000.0

10,000.0

12,000.0

14,000.0

16,000.0

18,000.0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

$M

FC ($M) Serial-Attached SCSI ($M) SCSI ($M) SSA ($M) ATA ($M)

Source: Gartner, September 2005

* External Storage means storage arrays only

External Storage System Revenue By Drive Interface*

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SAS/SATA Is Emerging to Address Tiered Storage and Is Encroaching Fibre Channel’s Market

• SAS & SATA– New physical layer technology– SAS Primarily developed as a parallel SCSI drive replacement– Emergence in external storage is primarily to natively connect

SATA drives for low cost– Marketed Benefits

• Most addresses parallel SCSI weaknesses• Perceived system cost savings over current FC connected

solutions• 2.5” SFF Disk Drive format• Physically connects SATA drives

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SAS/SATA Is Emerging to Address Tiered Storage and Is Encroaching Fibre Channel’s Market

• SAS & SATA– Drawbacks

• Immature and unproven technology• SAS is gated by SATA development• SAS is connection based and not switch based• Copper-only solution, 6m maximum, limiting applications• SAS cannot meet the needs of many applications FC does meet• In comparable applications, system costs are comparable

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Fibre Channel RoadmapFastest Interconnect Speeds

2GFC

4GFC

8GFC

1GFC

Sp

ee

ds

Time

16GFC+…What are the datesOn this slide? The Implication is that

1GFC is now “dead”As the line fades out.

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Fibre Channel RoadmapFlexible Fibre Channel Tiered Storage Solutions

Tape

Sto

rag

e S

olu

tio

ns

Time

Drive Bridges to SATA Disk

FC-SATA to SATA Disk

Enclosure Bridges to SATA Disk

Nearline Optimized Disks

SuperScalar and Speed AgilityDisk Based Solutions

2004 2005 2006 2007Today

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Fast & Flexible Fibre Channel Storage Solutions

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Nearline-Optimized Drives• Nearline Optimized HDD’s seek to provide a low cost

disk solution for native Fibre Channel attachment• Nearline-Optimized Can Be

– Pure Fibre Channel– SATA HDD with a Fibre Channel interface converting a SATA

interface• The difference between many FC Nearline-Optimized

HDD and SATA HDD are the FC connector and the FC interface chip

• Offer Lower Cost Than Performance FC Drives– A FC Nearline Optimized HDD fits anywhere an enterprise FC

HDD fits but may have a cost more comparable to a SATA HDD

• True Drop In Solution– Requires no backplane, cable, driver, firmware, or software

changes to use a FC Nearline Optimized HDD in a FC system

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Enclosure-Based Bridging Operation

• Connects FC drives and SATA drives through Protocol Bridge

• Requests to FC drives routed without change

• Requests to SATA drives routed through FC infrastructure without change

• Supports multiple initiators

• SATA drives presented as FC to the RAID controller

• Uses one Protocol Bridge per disk enclosure to convert Fibre Channel to SATA for all disk drives in the enclosure

• With two Protocol Bridge per disk enclosure allows redundancy for HA

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Enclosure-Based Bridging Benefits

• Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure

• Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives• Offers a choice of implementation

• Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA

• Based on field proven Fibre Channel technology

• Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect

• Stability• Efficiencies• Reliability, Availability,

Serviceability• Performance While Scaling

• All translations performed at one place within the JBOD using protocol bridge

• Deployment without significant changes to RAID code base

• New storage features can be used without changes to the RAID controller

• Uses T10 specified SCSI/ATA translation

• Delivers similar data integrity protection as traditional FC model

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Drive-Based Bridging Operation• Connects FC drives and SATA

drives through Protocol Bridge at each drive

• Requests to FC drives routed without change

• Requests to SATA drives routed through FC infrastructure without change

• Supports multiple initiators

• SATA drives presented as FC to the RAID controller

• Uses one Protocol Bridge per disk to convert Fibre Channel to SATA for each SATA disk drive in the enclosure

• Dual FC ports allow redundancy for HA

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Drive-Based Bridging Benefits

• Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure

• Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives• Offers a choice of implementation

• Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA

• Based on field proven Fibre Channel technology

• Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect

• Stability• Efficiencies• Reliability, Availability, Serviceability• Performance While Scaling

• Each slot in JBOD can be either SATA or FC

• Deployment without significant changes to RAID code base

• New storage features can be used without changes to the RAID controller

• Uses T10 specified SCSI/ATA translation

• Delivers similar data integrity protection as traditional FC model

• Supports T10 Data Protection Model for Data Integrity

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FC-SATA

• Operation– Native SATA disk drive

attachment into Fibre Channel infrastructures

– Connects FC drives and SATA drives through FC tunnel

– Immediately supports multiple initiators

– Requests to FC drives routed without change

– Requests to SATA drives encapsulated in FC frames routed through FC infrastructure

– SATA Data and Control embedded as standard FC payload

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FC-SATA• Benefits

– Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure

– Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives

– Offers a choice of implementation

• Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA

– Based on field proven Fibre Channel technology

– Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect

• Stability• Efficiencies• Reliability, Availability,

Serviceability• Performance While Scaling

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• Enables Tiered Storage Systems with 1000’s of different disk drives– Break the FC-AL 126 device barrier– Scale to support 1,000’s of drives– FC-FLA based, non-Fabric switching– FC-SMB Compliant

• Speed agile ports accommodate mixed disk types– High performance 4 Gb/s– Legacy 2 Gb/s– Nearline Optimized 2 Gb/s – Enables SBOD & JBOD intermixing

SuperScalar Tiered Storage

JBOD Using FC

Or Nearline Optimized

Drives

Or Nearline Optimized

Drives

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• Fibre Channel is the dominant infrastructure for external storage systems

• Fibre Channel continues to be the fastest technology available at 4 Gb/s today and going to 8 Gb/s soon

• Fibre Channel is flexible in offering a number of solutions for cost effective tiered storage delivery– Many available and shipping today– Others emerging with additional benefits

Fibre Channel SuperioritySummary

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Call To Action• Extend Fibre Channel’s longevity

– Don’t give SAS a free pass to take over Fibre Channel’s market

• Give Storage System Providers freedom of choice

• Lower the cost of Fibre Channel storage systems

• Build awareness of FC tiered storage flexibility through FCIA-sponsored efforts

• Discuss Next Steps– Obtain FCIA Board Approval to proceed– Make commitments to progress throughout 2006 and beyond– Launch at SNW

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Terminology• Online Tier

• Nearline Tier

• Offline Tier