Computer Architecture Simulation & Visualisation
Storlite: Storage Systems Optical Networking
Overview |
Contributors |
Publications
Project Overview
The Storlite project was a collaborative industry-academia research
project funded under the DTI/EPSRC LINK Information Storage and
Displays (LINK ISD) programme and led by Xyratex, a disk storage
company based in Havant. It has involved an investigation of the
application of affordable short-reach optical backplane technologies
to future architectures of storage systems. Xyratex has worked with
Exxelis (a company based in Glasgow) and University College London on
optical components and with ICSA at the University of Edinburgh (EPSRC
grant GR/S28143) on the simulation of RAID systems.
As the intra-enclosure transmission rate and the number of disks
required in each storage sub-system increase, implementing electrical
backplanes in storage systems is becoming increasingly
difficult. Hence, the optical part of the Storlite project
investigated how to implement optical backplanes for storage systems
to make them more scalable.
The simulation part of the project involved using HASE to create
simulation models of RAID storage systems and industry standard
benchmark traffic generators (SPC and IOmeter) and using these models
to identify performance bottlenecks, to evaluate communication
protocol options and to explore the design space for new hardware
acceleration architecture options for next generation storage
sub-systems based on optical backplanes.
Details of the results obtained can be found in the EPSRC Final Report.
Contributors
- Franck Chevalier
- Tim Courtney
- Juan Carlos Diaz y Carballo
- David Dolman
- Roland Ibbett
- Yan Li
Publications
- "SimRAID: An Efficient Performance Evaluation Tool for RAID
Systems", Y. Li, T Courtney, F Chevalier & R.N. Ibbett, SCSC2006,
pp 431-438, Calgary, Canada, 2006.
-
"Overcoming the Driver Cost in Extreme Short Range Optical
Interconnect", T. Courtney & F. Chevalier, Proc. IASTED Optical
Communication Systems and Networks Conference (OCSN), pp 431-438,
Banff, Canada, July 2005.
-
"Comparison of SBOD and MBOD Under SPC-1 Traffic", T. Courtney &
F. Chevalier, IASTED PDCN 2005, Innsbruck, Austria, February 2005.
-
"IOmeter Performance Comparison of SBOD and MBOD", F. Chevalier, R.
Ibbett & T. Courtney, WSEAS Transactions on Computers, Issue 6, Vol. 3,
Dec 2004.
-
"Work in Progress: Low level simulation of back-end storage network
using HASE", T. Courtney & F. Chevalier, IEEE conference on Mass
Storage systems and Technology, Maryland, USA, April 2004.
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