ATTO Technology debuts Gen 5 16GB line of Fibre-Channel Cards

ATTO Technology will highlight their Gen 5 powered, 16Gb line of Fibre Channel-enabling host, infrastructure and storage products, which provide the ideal end-to-end solution for managing data center performance across virtualized SAN environments while extending the value of fabric virtualization. Gen 5 Fibre Channel SANs are the purpose-built, data center-proven network infrastructures for storage, delivering unmatched reliability, simplicity, and performance. Gen 5 Fibre Channel unleashes the full potential of high-density server virtualization, cloud architectures, and next-generation storage, such as SSD-based systems.

ATTO products are the core building blocks for server, fabric and storage virtualization. These products will be discussed in a presentation entitled “Productivity Solutions for VMware Infrastructures” at the Emulex booth theater on Monday, August 26 at 1:00pm, and again Tuesday, August 27 at 3:00pm. The presentation will speak in depth about the advantages of ATTOs Gen 5 powered 16Gb Fibre Channel to SAS/SATA FastStream SC 9000 RAID Storage Controllers, FibreConnect™ 1600 Fibre Channel Switches, FibreBridge 6500 Fibre Channel to SAS/SATA Bridges, and Celerity™ Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). “ATTO is the only manufacturer that allows direct connection to enterprise-class storage, from not just servers, but workstations as well,” said Wayne Arvidson, Vice President of Marketing at ATTO Technology, Inc. “Our heritage of developing managed latency and high-bandwidth connectivity means maximum performance and virtual machine scalability for VMware infrastructures.”

ATTOs high performance Gen 5 Celerity Fibre Channel HBAs, the industry’s first 16Gb quad port cards, bring virtual fabric integration to the next level by enabling a single adapter to connect into multiple virtual fabrics. N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV), a key feature of ATTOs HBA technology, enables each Fibre Channel HBA to define multiple “virtual ports”, identified by Worldwide Ports Names (WWPN). These virtual ports can then be assigned to each virtual machine. NPIV enables administrators to manage storage on behalf of the virtual machine, in much the same way they manage storage attached to physical machines, leveraging familiar best practices and existing SAN management tools.

The ATTO FastStream SC 9000 RAID Storage Controller, the industry’s first RAID controller featuring 16Gb Fibre Channel performance, complements virtualized environments with storage-virtualization technology that enables a logical presentation of data which is not limited by the physical storage infrastructure. Data is protected with ATTOs RAID technology using standard SAS Storage Arrays while increasing storage utilization on a high performance, reliable platform where storage pools can be utilized with VMware, Hyper-V or other popular virtualization environments. ATTOs Advanced Data Streaming technology (ADS) efficiently provides access to a large number of virtual machines when accessing the same storage pool, while DriveAssure repairs drives to prevent premature drive failures and slowdowns to maximize system uptimes and ensure 100% throughput, even during data rebuilds. Additionally, when used in conjunction with ATTO Celerity Multipath Director, the FastStream provides improved productivity and superior performance over other solutions.

The ATTO FibreConnect 1600 Fibre Channel Switch is critical for today’s highly virtualized data center environments and offers low-cost access to industry-leading SAN technology, while providing “pay-as-you-grow” scalability to meet the needs of an evolving storage environment. The ATTO FibreConnect meets the demands of data center environments by delivering market-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology and capabilities that support highly virtualized environments and fabric virtualization. Designed to enable maximum flexibility and reliability, the ATTO FibreConnect Switch is a high-performance switch that is configurable in 8, 12 or 24 ports. In addition, it supports 2, 4, 8, or 16 Gb/s speeds in an efficiently designed 1U package. A simplified deployment process and a point-and-click user interface make the ATTO FibreConnect Switch both powerful and easy to use.

The ATTO FibreBridge 6500 Fibre Channel to SAS/SATA Bridge provides significant storage-related performance gains in the data center. With the embedded Virtual Device Manager, virtual devices within the bridge accomplish individual tasks without performance degradation. This feature enables ATTOs Virtual Drive Response (VDR) technology, which allows devices to queue commands on behalf of busy or unresponsive tape storage connected to the bridge, thereby reducing the number of failed or incomplete backups and improving restore times. This is especially important when backing up data across a large number of virtual machines. The FibreBridge also contains patented Drive Map Director technology which provides a logical, static topology which reduces downtime or reconfiguration when using disk-based storage behind the bridge.