Dot Hill Assigned Patent for iSCSI SANs

Dot Hill Systems Corporation announced an addition to its patent portfolio – to optimizes iSCSI SAN performance and reduces expansion costs.

Using the flow control mechanisms built into iSCSI SANs, the technology in Dot Hill’s 86th U.S. patent, numbered 8,244,939, Method and apparatus for dynamically allocating queue depth by initiator, supports increased capacity for maximized performance of storage controllers and networks.

It achieves this by allowing storage controller ports to handle more read and write requests from the server. If one port is maxed out due to a full queue of read and write requests, the Dot Hill software makes it possible to borrow queue depth from another less busy port, reducing the number of ‘retries’ by hosts, and more efficiently relaying requests to the storage controller.

"iSCSI-based SANs continue to grow in popularity due to their affordability and ease-of-use," said Jim Kuenzel, SVP of engineering, Dot Hill. "Administrators are looking for ways to make the absolute most of their iSCSI investments, maximizing performance while reducing costs and the need to make additional investments."

"This latest patent describes innovations that do exactly that," Kuenzel explains. "On today’s iSCSI SANs, each controller port is programmed to accept a limited number of read and write requests, even though many times, even with multiple port storage arrays, the controller has the capability to handle more requests than a given host port normally is able to handle. This patented technology resolves the situation to maximize performance, reduce costs and increase efficiencies."

Dot Hill’s newest patent describes technology that is integrated in the company’s AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series, the AssuredSAN 4000 Series and the AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series. The AssuredSAN storage portfolio offers up to 288TB of capacity in a single system, ease-of-use and up to 99.999% reliability.