A new intelligent integrated management model of chip-level storage and cloud storage

Providing functional optimization with high performance is considered a typical feature of cloud storage, and it is also necessary to have stable performance, economic security and agility. and storage-on-chip (chip-level storage) with a variety of technical advantages, it becomes the "cloud" with the ideal platform.

The core value added point of cloud computing is the ability to meet the dynamic needs (SLAs) of different users for IT services quickly and economically. To achieve these goals, cloud computing has the following requirements for storage.

Storge-on-chip (Chip-level storage) is the specific application of system-on-chip (the system-level chip concept widely used in the electronics industry) in the storage industry. Its core is to achieve versatility and high performance by embedding software in a single chip, as well as support for multiple protocols, multiple hardware, and different applications. Currently in the storage industry, only BlueArc, DataDirect, 3PAR and Chinese manufacturers walk and several other storage vendors can provide the market with chip-level storage products and applications.

One of the big challenges for cloud servicers and users is how to deliver high-performance, highly scalable data that traditional storage does not have, to provide more cost-efficient storage, to ensure security, to optimize systems, and to manage more data with fewer resources. The function optimization of traditional storage architecture needs a lot of CPU and memory, it is a scramble of system resources, which may result in the overall performance decrease after function optimization, but the chip-level storage realizes the function optimization through the chip logic, no longer relies on CPU and memory, it is a revolution of architecture, Ensure functional optimization and high-performance of both. At the same time, the latest technology of FPGA (Field Programmable gate array) provides more powerful function, which lays the foundation for the high performance support of multiple functions, multiple hardware, multiple protocols and applications.

Users have a higher demand for personalized services for cloud computing, which requires faster market responsiveness from suppliers and service providers. Traditional architecture storage to achieve rapid market response, it means high design costs, otherwise it will endure a longer development cycle.

FPGA technology not only short development cycle, the development of the replacement is also more convenient. Usually a traditional architecture requires a two-year design practice, and it takes only a few months to pass the FPGA. Modifying the design is not only low-cost, but also can be shortened from several months to several hours. This design speed and design flexibility make the chip-level storage products particularly suitable for high-performance virtual storage and cloud computing.

and chip-level storage can change the limitations of traditional storage design. With a variety of processor cores and integration of more processing capabilities of the chip, often known as the "soft core processor-hardware accelerator," The FPGA technology, will greatly enhance the system performance, with the highest design flexibility, particularly suitable for personalized product development.

ASIC (special-purpose integrated circuit) is another widely used technology to realize chip-level storage, which is more suitable for products with fixed design and mass production. Compared with the FPGA technology, the design flexibility is limited and the cycle is too long, which is not suitable for the small batch production personalized products under the rapid response demand.

Cost is one of the most attractive factors for cloud computing as a way of serving. The chip-level storage architecture achieves high performance, versatility, cross-platform and high intelligence through a chip, effectively reducing the cost of storage. Storage-on-chip supports a variety of hardware, multi-protocol, programmable I/O and multiprocessor core devices, which, at the technical level, determine that chip-level storage can be used to blade the storage function and enable more intelligent storage management.

For example, a new generation of storage-on-chip (chip-level storage) can provide high performance for NAS (typically for unstructured, file-level data) and sans (typically for structured, data block-level data) with fast (IOPS) and large throughput advantages, To achieve unified storage provides a solid technical platform. Therefore, in the cloud computing environment, with chip-level storage, intelligent storage and tiered storage deployment simpler, centralized management automation level, so that "cloud" service providers at a lower cost to provide flexible service choices at different levels.