ATTO XstreamCORE ET 8200
40Gb/s Ethernet (2-Port) to SAS Accelerated Storage Controller

Overview:

ATTO XstreamCORE Storage Controllers are high-performance accelerated protocol conversion appliances which add shared storage benefits to SAS storage but at direct attached speeds. XstreamCORE provides remote access to SAS storage enabling storage owners to disaggregate storage from server hardware using JBOD, JBOF, RAID or Tape Storage. Use cases include mapping one or many individual drives to space limited rack or blade servers, remapping attached drives from failed servers to replacement servers, adding shared capabilities to direct attached storage and remotely locating direct attached disk or tape devices.

Optimized for high performance with multiple hardware acceleration engines, XstreamCORE provides industry-leading performance to up to 64 servers with less than 2 microseconds of added latency. XstreamCORE enables a common set of services and features and is engineered with an open design that does not alter the data path. ATTO Storage Controllers keep overall storage solutions flexible without locking users into proprietary hardware implementations. The ATTO Storage Controller is a modular building block with technology that allows SysAdmins to reduce resource load while decoupling storage from server resources.

The XstreamCORE ET 8200 achieves up to 1.2M 4K IOPS and 6.4GB/s throughput per controller with only 2 microseconds of added latency. XstreamCORE supports Extended Copy (LID1) data mover commands and will offload up to 5.2GB/s of data from CPU, memory, networks and storage fabrics leaving more resources for VMs and applications running on the host. Build solutions with up to 960 SAS SSD/HDD devices behind a pair of controllers and better manage, monitor and utilize this storage with current and future features built into XstreamCORE.

ATTO XstreamCORE Storage Controllers can be tuned for various applications that require common features and services for storage. Contact us to discuss development or co-development of services and features to tightly integrate with your solution. Embedded form factor is also available. (OEM only)

Technical Features

• Connects two 40 GbE ports to four X4 12Gb mini-SAS connectors
• Integrates with up to 960 devices* per controller
• Individually map drives to a host or multiple drives to multiple hosts
• Uses iSER (iSCSI extensions for RDMA) for deterministic latency over Ethernet
• Adds less than two microseconds of latency
• I/O Acceleration with ATTO xCORE technology featuring multiple hardware acceleration engines
• eCORE virtualizes a common set of services and features
• Patented Drive Map Director simplifies mapping and reduces maintenance costs for storage
• ATTO Data Mover technology improves storage performance while reducing compute, memory and network utilization
• ATTO control processing provides intelligence and features not found in direct attached technologies to add functionality for improved productivity
• Management capable through RS-232, USB, Ethernet or in-band
• Ability to run OEM IP on the controller

Extend The Reach of Storage From Servers

ATTO XstreamCORE storage controllers act as external adapters adding a common set of services and features to flash SSD and HDD based JBOD, JBOF or RAID storage and SAS tape devices. XstreamCORE then remotely shares this storage over long or short distances using high speed Ethernet technology. Use cases for these controllers include the remoting of storage from servers or other storage mediums over an Ethernet network, sharing a pool of high speed flash to multiple Ethernet connected systems, connecting data centers for business continuity via a stretch cluster and disaggregating storage from servers to independently scale compute and storage.

Engineered to Provide Deterministic Latency

Higher storage latency slows real-world performance, server based storage architectures depend on general purpose processors to transfer data, manage storage and add services and features to storage. When services and features are added, the CPU has to process each command in software which increases overall latency. XstreamCORE features a more efficient architecture that separates data traffic from services and features removing any non-data request from the data path to maintain a consistent level of latency and performance.

xCORE Hardware Data Acceleration Engine

ATTO developed the xCORE Acceleration Engine to handle the majority of I/O operations in a hardware processing pipeline without software intervention. xCORE manages all I/O, command routing and decoding, buffer allocation, reservations, access controls and provides real time data analytics. Any exception is off-ramped to the eCORE Control Engine to manage commands which do not require acceleration. ATTO xCORE technology enables the ATTO XstreamCORE to achieve up to 1.2M 4K IOPS or 6GB/s throughput per controller while adding a consistent sub two microseconds of latency.

eCORE Control Engine for Management and Storage Services

ATTO eCORE Control Engine technology provides un-accelerated command processing for management services, storage services and integration with third party IP. eCORE has full access to all on-chip resources to add common, open storage services, storage routing, diagnostics, one pane of glass interfacing and host mapping functions while managing all performance metric reporting and data mover functions. With direct access to hardware drivers, enclosure management I/O signals and busses, eCORE is an efficient tool that virtualizes services and features.

• Provides common services such as multiinitiator access, data mover, reservations and vendor specific commands
• Maintains priority for data transfers while providing management of memory and cooperative multi-tasking capabilities

xCORE Acceleration Technology

xCORE data acceleration technology features multiple parallel I/0 acceleration engines with end to end I/0 processing, hardware buffer allocation management and real-time performance and latency analytics.

• Performance-critical commands and all reads/ writes are accelerated in hardware
• End-to-end data protection in the acceleration technology and control functions to safeguard data throughout the controller and also enables max login management capabilities
• Eliminates bottlenecks with parallel processing for up to a 10X performance improvement over standard protocol conversion
• Maximizes large block transfer sizes from Ethernet to SAS/SATA devices for optimal streaming performance (GB/s)

OEM Customization

• Hardware configuration options allow for unique board ID to define initialization and characteristics of the OEM product
• eCORE capabilities can be extended with ATTO OEM integration programs to take advantage of available XstreamCORE ARM processing cores and a Linux based operating system to add OEM IP for unique features impact latency or performance

Data Routing Fabric Topology

• Incorporates advanced ASIC, firmware and interface technologies that enable users to fine tune ATTO controllers for specific applications
• ATTO Embedded Operating System (AEOS) provides an integrated, multitasking environment that self optimizes to changing I/O patterns for maximum performance while maintaining priority for data transfers
• Standard READ BUFFER commands allow the collection of inquiry data, event logs, port statistics, phy statistics, SFP and SAS connector information, trace log, core dump, configuration and status information
• WRITE BUFFER commands are also supported to update controller firmware, clear the event log, clear port and phy statistics and to also write a message to the event log