Bridgeworks Said to Offer First 40Gb iSCSI-to-SAS Protocol Bridge

Bridgeworks Limited unveiled a 40Gb iSCSI-to-SAS protocol bridge, the Potomac ESAS402800.

This announcement now extends the applicability of the current range of Potomac bridges from the desktop all the way to the largest enterprise.
 
The Potomac ESAS402800 is for connecting to the latest SAS devices such as disk arrays, LTO-6 tape drives and tape libraries through its two 6Gb SAS ports which support four SAS channels each. The connection to the iSCSI SAN infrastructure is via dual 40Gbe ports that use QSFP+ sockets (Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus).
 
According to an IBM survey in 2012, every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, so much that 90% of the data in existence today was created in the last two years alone. Managing this growing volume of data requires a new approach, if organisations are to gain benefit from mining this data. The launch of Potomac ESAS402800 continues Bridgeworks’ development of fast iSCSI-to-SAS bridges, raising disk and tape connectivity to new levels of performance, and heralding the first steps towards a new generation of peripheral devices that will be needed to cope with the "big data explosion."
 
The Potomac family of iSCSI bridges has been designed to provide a cost-effective solution for customers who wish to include not only their legacy SCSI devices but also the latest SAS devices in an iSCSI network. It is now possible for an organisation to gain the benefits that a SAN can bring to data management by using their existing network technology; because TCP/IP is widely used and understood, there is no need to employ additional personnel or purchase staff training programs to manage this infrastructure.
 
Today, enjoying healthy growth rates, transfer speeds hovering around 400MB/s, and cartridge capacities in excess of 6TB, tape is still proving to be a popular and cost-effective choice for heavy-duty backup and archive applications. Thanks to Potomac ESAS402800 SCSI-to-SAS bridge, business users will be able to take advantage of 40Gb/s speeds in the data centre. The immediate effect of this increase in performance will be seen across the organisations through improvements such as fewer and shorter interruptions to key applications during the backup cycle, and the ability to access ever more remote data centres in a timely manner.
 
The Potomac ESAS402800, packaged in an 1U enclosure and available from March 2013, continues Bridgeworks’ approach with its adaptive write and read ahead caching techniques. This makes it suitable for those users who want to connect and share their storage in a virtualised computing environment, such as VMware or HyperV.

David Trossell, CEO of Bridgeworks, stated: "Today’s datacentres are highly heterogeneous; they regularly feature a combination of different vendors and technologies and it is often frustrating to be constrained by the lowest denominator. Thanks to 40GbE connectivity for iSCSI and SAS devices users will now be able to exploit new peripherals to their fullest and, more importantly, to manage the explosion of data that we are seeing across all organisations. With the announcement of the Potomac ESAS2800, Bridgeworks has once again demonstrated its leadership of the bridging market."
 
He continued: "The Bridgeworks Potomac ESAS402800 builds on our vast experience and leadership in the connectivity market. We expect that the adoption of 40Gbe iSCSI into the enterprise will be rapid and widespread. This release demonstrates Bridgeworks’ continued commitment to developing unique and innovative solutions for connecting the latest advances in storage protocols and storage devices."