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LSI Corporation is announcing an expanded original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Intel. This expanded agreement will see LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology available as part of Intel’s RAID product family. Intel will offer LSI’s Nytro MegaRAID technology in their Intel RAID SSD Cache Controllers, models RCS25ZB040 and RCS25ZB040LX. Intel’s RCS25ZB040 includes 256GB of embedded flash memory, while the RCS25ZB040LX includes 1TB of flash.
Flash technology is gaining widespread acceptance for enterprise servers. Customers with significant investments in hard disk drive (HDD) and/or direct-attached-storage (DAS) infrastructures are looking for ways to lower costs and increase storage and applications performance. The LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology features intelligent caching software. This enables the unique integration of server-side PCIe flash with LSI’s industry-leading dual-core RAID-on-chip (ROC) technology, allowing for simple and transparent acceleration of applications and RAID data protection for enterprise DAS environments.
According to Noury Al-Khaledy, General Manager Intel Enterprise Platforms and Services Division, “Customers in virtually every industry are facing competitive pressures to increase datacenter efficiency and lower IT costs. Through our expanded relationship with LSI, we’re able to offer customers a single, integrated solution that enables new levels of application performance, proven data protection and a low TCO” (total cost of ownership).
LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology accomplishes this by converting server-based flash into a “hot” data cache for critical applications. The Nytro MegaRAID technology helps Intel to provide their server board and systems customers with very high random IOPS levels, for latency-sensitive and data-intensive workloads such as big data applications and databases, Hadoop implementations, and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI). By utilizing Nytro MegaRAID cards, Hadoop jobs completed up to 33% faster, and twice as many VDI sessions were supported as compared to non-caching storage versions. Database transactions occur up to 10X faster.
Gary Smerdon, senior vice president and general manager, Accelerated Solutions Division at LSI states “We’re excited to be working with Intel to bring the powerful performance, data protection and TCO benefits of LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology to Intel customers.”
LSI Nytro MegaRAID also significantly accelerates the RAID array rebuild process in the event of a drive failure. With traditional RAID solutions, database performance degrades while the array is rebuilding. Nytro MegaRAID maintains high performance even in rebuild mode. LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology features LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processors to achieve their award-winning performance, durability, and low energy consumption. These products are based upon industry de facto standard RAID controller technology drivers and management support. This enables widespread compatibility with current storage infrastructures, and simple plug-and-play integration into the low-profile, high-performance system chassis of today.
LSI’s Nytro MegaRAID technology is part of their comprehensive Nytro portfolio of PCIe flash adapters, which includes the Nytro Warpdrive and Nytro XD product families. Intel now joins the likes of Oracle, IBM, and Cisco/NetApp in LSI’s OEM fold.