Draft Superiority of Fibre Channel Technology Fast & Flexible Tiered Storage October 2005 Revision 2

Draft Information Lifecycle Management Requires Tiered Storage Offline Nearline Online Enterprise-Class HDDs High Performance & Reliability Nearline Optimized HDDs Nearline & Temporary Retention Tape Backup Long-Term Storage ILM TierStorage Tier Type Matching Data To Most Appropriate Storage Type Is The ILM Enabler The SNIA Data Management Forum (DMF) definition for ILM reads: “Information Lifecycle Management is comprised of the policies, processes, practices and tools use to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition. Information is aligned with business processes through management of policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, information and data.”

Draft Established, Trusted and Ubiquitous –Designed from the beginning for high throughput datacom applications with minimal latencies and guaranteed delivery –Supports all storage connections from disk drives to datacenters to campuses to 100km remote sites –The trusted and deployed technology in Fortune 500 for Mission Critical applications –Leading in providing the SMB SAN market with Enterprise class storage reliability –Thousands of proven reference designs Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

Draft Fastest Speeds –4 GFC Fibre Channel connectivity solutions available today Signals ramp in market adoption for next generation storage infrastructure solutions –8 GFC and 16 GFC Fibre Channel on the horizon Flexible for Tiered Storage –Attaches a variety of performance and nearline-optimized solutions, including SATA drives for ILM –Backwards and forwards compatible between speeds –Enables intermixing 4 GFC, 2 GFC & 1 GFC technologies without slowdown in any point in the system –Unparalleled ability to seamlessly scale to higher capacity, performance and reliability, availability and serviceability –Proven interoperability through standards compliant implementations Plugests since 1996 Active T11 Interoperability Profiles Multiple active interoperability test facilities Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

Draft Continuous Progress –Provides investment protection for already installed infrastructures Preserves existing, extensive software and hardware base –Continual specification enhancements to offer new solutions to meet evolving market needs Speed improvements (Moore’s law since 1992) Solution enhancements Lower cost solutions –SATA Attachment –Nearline Optimized FC Fibre Channel Is The Superior Interconnect For External Storage Systems

Draft Fibre Channel Is The Dominant Solution for External Storage Systems Source: Gartner, September 2005 * External Storage means storage arrays only External Storage System Revenue By Drive Interface*

Draft SAS Is Emerging to Address Tiered Storage and Is Encroaching Fibre Channel’s Market How SAS is Positioning Itself Against FC –New physical layer technology –SAS Primarily developed as a parallel SCSI drive replacement –Emergence in external storage is primarily to natively connect SATA drives for low cost –Marketed Benefits Most addresses parallel SCSI weaknesses Perceived system cost savings over current FC connected solutions 2.5” SFF Disk Drive format Physically connects SATA drives

Draft Beginning of FC versus SAS Charts Still a TBD, but I ran out of time. Slides are in work

Draft SCSISASFC-AL PerformanceParallel BusFull duplex 320MB/s3.0Gbps/300MB/s4.0Gbps/400MB/s Extensive Command Queuing Extensive command queuing Extensive Command queuing Connectivity12m8m15m 15 device>128 devices127 devices Arbitrated busPoint to Point ConnectionArbitrated loop Interconnect not compatible with SAS Interconnect compatible with SATA Not compatible with SAS or SATA AvailabilitySingle portDual port Multi initiator Hot swappable (80 pin)Hot swappable Driver ModelSoftware not transparent with SAS Software transparent with Parallel SCSI FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison AttributeFCSAS Media:Copper and FiberCopper Only Distance: Speed: Encoding:8b10b, 4-byte dwords

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft FC and SAS Comparison

Draft Fibre Channel Roadmap Fastest Interconnect Speeds Fibre Channel Speed Chart Product Naming Throughput (MBps) Line Rate (Gbaud) T11 Spec Completed (Year) Market Avaiability (Year) 1GFC GFC GFC GFC1, GFC GFC Market Demand 64GFC Market Demand 128GFC Market Demand Base10** 10GFC *Base2 used throughout all applications for Fibre Channel Infrastructure and devices. Each speed maintains backward compatibility at least two previous generations (I.e., 4GFC backward compatible to 2GFC and 1GFC) **Base10 commonly used for ISL, core connections, and other high speed applications demanding maximum bandwidth Lines Rate: All speeds are single-lane serial stream Base2*

Draft Fibre Channel Roadmap Flexible Fibre Channel Tiered Storage Solutions Tape Storage Solutions Time Drive Bridges to SATA Disk FC-SATA to SATA Disk Enclosure Bridges to SATA Disk Nearline Optimized Disks SuperScalar and Speed Agility Disk Based Solutions Today

Draft Fast & Flexible Fibre Channel Storage Solutions

Draft Nearline-Optimized Drives Nearline Optimized HDD’s seek to provide a low cost disk solution for native Fibre Channel attachment Nearline-Optimized HDD Characteristics are –Higher Duty Cycles than Desktop –Improved MTBF over Desktop –Meant for 24x7 in low to medium Duty Cycle Operation –Typically lower rotational speed and longer access times than performance drives Current Implementations –Native Fibre Channel Nearline Optimized SATA Nearline HDD Mechanics with Native FC Electronics –SATA Nearline HDD with a FC to SATA bridge drive carrier True Drop-In Solution –Requires no backplane, cable, driver, firmware, or software changes to use a FC Nearline Optimized HDD in a FC system (Carrier must accommodate this approach)

Draft Nearline-Optimized Drives Future Implementations –SATA Nearline HDD accessed with FC-SATA Offer Lower Cost Than Performance FC Drives –A FC Nearline Optimized HDD fits anywhere a performance FC HDD fits but has more a comparable cost to a SATA HDD

Draft FC-SATA Operation Operation –Native SATA disk drive attachment into Fibre Channel infrastructures –Connects FC drives and SATA drives through FC tunnel –Immediately supports multiple initiators –Requests to FC drives routed without change –Requests to SATA drives encapsulated in FC frames routed through FC infrastructure –SATA Data and Control embedded as standard FC payload FC-SATA Storage in SATA JBOD SATA Drives FC-SATA Storage in SATA JBOD FC and/or SATA Drives FC-SATA Storage FC Drives Legacy FC Storage

Draft FC-SATA Benefits Benefits –Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure –Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives –Offers a choice of implementation Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA –Based on field proven Fibre Channel technology –Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect Stability Efficiencies Reliability, Availability, Serviceability Performance While Scaling Each slot in JBOD can be either SATA or FC FC-SATA Storage in SATA JBOD SATA Drives FC-SATA Storage in SATA JBOD FC and/or SATA Drives FC-SATA Storage FC Drives Legacy FC Storage

Draft Enclosure-Based Bridging Operation Connects FC drives and SATA drives through Protocol Bridge Requests to FC drives routed without change Requests to SATA drives routed to enclosure as native FC protocol Immediately supports multiple initiators SATA drives presented as FC to the RAID controller Uses one Protocol Bridge per disk enclosure to convert Fibre Channel to SATA for all disk drives in the enclosure Two Protocol Bridges per disk enclosure and A-A or A-P muxing allows redundancy for HA

Draft Enclosure-Based Bridging Benefits Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives Offers a choice of implementation Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA Based on field-proven Fibre Channel technology Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect Stability Efficiencies Reliability, Availability, Serviceability Performance While Scaling All translations performed at one place within the JBOD using protocol bridge Deployment without significant changes to RAID code base New SATA drive features can be used without changes to the RAID controller Uses T10 specified SCSI/ATA translation (SAT) Delivers similar data integrity protection as traditional FC model

Draft Drive-Based Bridging Operation SATA drives connected to FC midplane through a protocol bridge drive carrier Uses one Protocol Bridge per disk to convert Fibre Channel to SATA for each SATA disk drive in the enclosure Requests to FC drives routed without change Requests to SATA drive routed as native FC protocol Immediately supports multiple initiators SATA drives presented as FC to the RAID controller Dual FC ports allow redundancy for HA

Draft Drive-Based Bridging Benefits Protects investments by leveraging existing FC infrastructure Lowers cost by using SATA disk drives Offers a choice of implementation Pure Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel / SATA, or pure SATA Based on field proven Fibre Channel technology Leverages field proven Fibre Channel interconnect Stability Efficiencies Reliability, Availability, Serviceability Performance While Scaling Each slot in JBOD can be either SATA or FC Deployment without significant changes to RAID code base New SATA drive features can be used without changes to the RAID controller Uses T10 specified SCSI/ATA translation Delivers similar data integrity protection as traditional FC model Supports T10 Data Protection Model for Data Integrity

Draft Enables Tiered Storage Systems with 1000’s of different disk drives –Break the FC-AL 126 device barrier –Scale to support 1,000’s of drives Speed agile ports accommodate mixed disk types –High performance 4GFC –Legacy 2GFC –Nearline Optimized 2GFC or 4GFC SuperScalar Tiered Storage 2 GFC JBODs Using FC Or Nearline Optimized Drives All ports Speed Agile 1 GFC JBODs Using FC Or Nearline Optimized Drives 4 GFC JBODs Using Performance FC Drives

Draft Fibre Channel is the dominant infrastructure for external storage systems Fibre Channel continues to be the fastest technology available at 4 GFC today and going to 8 GFC by 2008 Fibre Channel is flexible in offering a number of solutions for cost effective tiered storage delivery –Many available and shipping today –Others emerging with additional benefits Ability to expand to 1000’s of drives behind a controller Fibre Channel Superiority Summary

Draft Call To Action Extend Fibre Channel’s longevity –Don’t give SAS a free pass to take over Fibre Channel’s market Give Storage System Providers freedom of choice Lower the cost of Fibre Channel storage systems Build awareness of FC tiered storage flexibility through FCIA-sponsored efforts Discuss Next Steps –Actually define the marketing plan –Obtain FCIA Board Approval to proceed –Make commitments to progress throughout 2006 and beyond