 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| • |
ARAIDoE Storage products
use the AoE protocol to connect disks to servers
using Ethernet. |
| • |
ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) is a
thin protocol layer directly on top of
Ethernet. |
| • |
ATA disk commands (ie. read
disk sector x, write disk sector y) are put
directly into standard Ethernet frames using the
AoE protocol. AoE is a block storage
protocol. |
| • |
AoE is a non-routed protocol,
therefore does not require IP or TCP protocol
layers. This eliminates unnecessary processing and
makes network connection to disks
simple. | | |
|
|
|
| • |
An AoE protocol driver in the
host operating system provides the initiator
function for the host to access storage connected
to an Ethernet port. |
| • |
The AoE driver bridges the
operating systems block device driver interface to
the hosts Ethernet driver. This allows the host to
use a standard Ethernet NIC. |
| • |
AoE target devices (ie.
EtherDrive disk storage appliances) connect via
standard Ethernet. |
| • |
AoE can work with any OS. An
AoE driver is inside the main Linux kernel.
Drivers are available for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris
and Windows. |
| • |
AoE target devices are just
like local disks. They can be used like a normal
hard disk drive, but since they are network
connected, the disk can be shared with any network
connected host. |
| • |
AoE target devices can be
partitioned like a normal disk, and supports any
filesystem like a normal
disk. | | |
|
| |
|
| • |
As with any block storage
device, the host operating system can also create
RAID sets from AoE devices. |
| • |
The AoE block devices can be
managed with storage virtualization tools like
logical volume managers and other volume
management tools. |
| • |
AoE devices naturally work
with disk-to-disk backup software and virtual tape
library software systems designed to work with
hard disk drives. |
| • |
AoE devices work with any
filesystem or as directly accessed disks as is
required by database
applications. | | |
|
| |
|
| • |
A single AoE device can be
partitioned. |
| • |
Each partition can be
accessed by a separate server or
application. |
| • |
Each partition can have its
own unique filesystem (ie. EXT3, JFS, XFS, Reiser,
etc.). | | |
|
|
|
| • |
A single AoE device can be
shared if a cluster filesystem is used (ie. GFS,
Lustre, etc.). |
| • |
The AoE protocol can be used
for unrestricted access to the disk volume or can
be used to apply access rules. |
| • |
Using port based VLAN access
zoning can be established. |
| • |
Coraid's SATA+RAID EtherDrive
storage appliances (SR1520 and SR420) also support
optional MAC address filtering to restrict server
access for each logical AoE device. |
| • |
Coraid's AoE storage devices
support a "configuration string" which is written
to the storage device. Once enabled, the config
string can be used to restrict disk access to only
hosts that use the config string in their AoE
storage
requests. | | |
| | |
