ATTO XstreamCORE FC 7500
16Gb/s Fibre Channel (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 4 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 FC 7500 achieves up to 750,000 4K IOPS or 3.2GB/s throughput with only 4 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 240 SSD/HDDs 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 (7500) or four (7550) 16 Gb Fibre Channel ports to four x4 12Gb miniSAS connectors
• Adds sharing, remote connectivity, mapping and common services to SAS/ SATA storage
• Adds enterprise Fibre Channel features to SAS SSD and HDDs
• Adds enterprise Fibre Channel features to SAS Tape and SATA optical devices (7500)
• Integrates with up to 960 devices* per controller
• Individually map drives to a host or multiple drives to multiple hosts
• Adds less than four 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, Ethernet or in-band
• Available in standard 1U 19” rackmount

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 devices. XstreamCORE then remotely shares this storage over long or short distances using Fibre Channel technology. Use cases for these controllers include the remoting of storage from servers or other storage mediums over a Fibre Channel SAN, sharing a pool of high speed flash to multiple 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.

xCORE Acceleration Technology

xCORE Data Acceleration technology features multiple parallel I/O acceleration engines with end to end I/O processing, hardware buffer allocation management and real-time performance and latency analytics. These features combine to provide very high, reliable throughput and IOPS while adding less than four microseconds of latency.

• 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 SAN storage
• Maximizes large block transfer sizes for optimal streaming performance (GB/s)

eCORE Control Engine

The eCORE Control Engine adds common, open storage services, integrates with industry standard APIs, handles reservations, storage routing and host and LUN mapping functions. The eCORE Control Engine also manages traffic for data mover offload functions with added error handling and diagnostic tools. These features add value to JBOD, JBOF or RAID storage while providing tight integration with server based software.

• Provides common services such as multiinitiator access, data mover, reservations and vendor specific commands that are applied to all attached enclosure and disk devices
• Maintains priority for data transfers while providing management of memory and cooperative multi-tasking capabilities

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 Fibre Channel and SAS port and phy statistics and to also write a message to the event log