QLogic, the leader in fibre channel host bust adapters and a provider of Ethernet adapters, envisions creating a virtual SAN to make server-based SSDs into a shared cache available across the data center in its Mt. Rainier Project, says Wikibon Analyst Stuart Miniman in his latest Wikibon Professional Alert. This simple but powerful idea is to make SSDs and flash cards on individual servers available through a single QLogic driver rather than individual drivers on each card, freeing them from captivity to a single server. Operationally, he says, the OS and applications will treat flash the same way that they treat storage in physical FC SANs.

The Mt. Rainier-enabled host buss adapter can connect to standard SAS SSDs or PCIe installed flash cards. Because QLogic provides both initiator and target mode drivers, the shared cache can be created across multiple servers, increasing the utility and applicability of the flash by combining the local performance and low latency of DAS with the increased utilization and management of SAN. Miniman says this technology will be particularly useful with applications that use clustering such as databases, Microsoft exchange, and VMware environments.

QLogic sells most of its productions through OEMs, who will play an important role in integrating and selling Mt. Rainier technology. Not only should this increase system performance, since flash operates an order-of-magnitude faster than spinning disk, it also should save large enterprises significant energy and cooling costs, since flash uses a fraction of the energy needed by disk systems. And while the initial solution is only for fibre channel, QLogic’s 16 Gbit FC HBAs can also operate as 10 Gb Ethernet adapters, implying that Mt. Rainier may support iSCSI and NFS in the future. And it will run across multiple OSes and hypervisors, which will be increasingly important given the trend toward multiple hypervisor environments in the marketplace.

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