Atto XstreamCORE Support for Remote and Shared Access Over Ethernet or FC

Atto Technology, Inc. announces support for XstreamCORE storage controllers to add remote FC or Ethernet connectivity to SATA optical disc and SAS LTO tape devices including the newly available LTO-8 tape format.

XstreamCORE FC 7500

XstreamCORE is designed to provide the benefits of remote access to DAS technologies as well as the connection of multiple devices to be shared by multiple clients.

“The digital tape market is experiencing new growth and is in a position to more rapidly deliver declining cost for storage over the next decade for archive and cold storage. This is especially true in markets that include HPC, digital video surveillance, media and entertainment, research and education, government agencies, broadcast and cloud service providers,” stated Jim U’Ren, product manager, XstreamCORE, Atto, “Cloud providers have especially embraced tape as a cost-effective way to handle the growing amount of data being generated and stored in the cloud. Tape is the option that will cost less and last longer over time giving better margins over spinning disk technology. XstreamCORE enables these service providers a more efficient way to add tape and grow capacity in their portfolio of storage options.“

XstreamCORE is a rack-scale flash and capacity storage controller that bridges 12Gb and 6Gb SAS storage devices and SATA devices to share and remotely connect them to FC or Ethernet networks. XstreamCORE includes company’s developed features including xCORE data acceleration to rapidly move data, the eCORE control engine to add services and management features to storage while not affecting performance, and SpeedWrite, a tape and optical performance feature that boosts write performance by effectively managing commands between attached clients and tape and optical devices.

“There are several government regulations such as those promoted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with best practices that require organizations to backup their server data as well as keep it separate from original copies of that data for legal and financial reasons,” stated Jeff Okonczak, director, customer engineering, Atto, “XstreamCORE enables organizations to attach multiple SAS tape or SATA optical devices and move this hardware out of the data center, or out of the building, to secure facilities to comply with these regulations.“

By directly being able to connect up to 16 SATA optical or SAS tape drives with the possibility of additional drives being connected through SAS expanders, XstreamCORE enables a lower cost of ownership versus native Ethernet or FC tape devices. Fewer switch ports are required when using XstreamCORE and power, cooling, cabling and weight requirements can be better managed as the firm’s controller allows separation of racks of client servers, storage and archive devices. XstreamCORE FC 7500 currently supports connectivity for SAS tape devices and SATA optical devices to FC connected servers or fabrics.

Company’s Ethernet to SAS controllers will be available in early 2018 to support connectivity for these devices to Ethernet connected servers or fabrics.

Resources:
Tech Brief: eCORE Control Engine
Tech Brief: FibreBridge Stretch Clusters
Tech Brief: Tape Connectivity Solutions
Tech Brief – xCORE Data Acceleration
Tech Brief: XstreamCORE Acceleration Platform