Scale Computing debuts small HCI edge appliance for edge computing, IT infrastructure deployments

Scale Computing released its latest HC3 Edge appliance, which is powered by Intel technology, offers a low-cost edge solution that is built on a tiny form factor, making it ideal to deploy in small clusters where highly available computing was previously cost-prohibitive. The appliance also introduces HC3 Edge Fabric, which eliminates the need for a backplane network switch requirement, lowering the TCO and delivering simpler connectivity for edge networks.

The HE150 appliance is a small, all-flash, NVMe storage-based compute appliance that delivers simplicity, efficiency, and enterprise-ready virtualization associated with Scale Computing’s HC3 platform. 

Built specifically for sites that need highly available infrastructure, the HE150 can be deployed almost anywhere, without requiring a rack or server closet. Taking up only the space needed to stack three smartphones, it also includes disaster recovery, high availability clustering, rolling upgrades and integrated data protection.

The HE150 is based on the Intel NUC, offering excellent performance to handle a wide range of workloads. The cutting-edge construction and connectivity comes ready for industrial and IoT applications. The extremely small form factor consumes a small amount of power, offers ease of installation and an ability to rapidly add devices that scale up rapidly, along with the reliability needed for edge computing and IoT applications.

“The high-functionality, reliability and performance of HE150 represents a major breakthrough that will open up new markets for Scale Computing and its partners, including Infrastructure Technology Solutions,” said Joel Althoff, president at Infrastructure Technology Solutions. “With Scale Computing, HE150 opens up a new door to edge computing, delivering an affordable edge solution equipped with disaster recovery and resiliency, that is truly innovative in the marketplace.”

In addition to the new Scale Computing HE150 appliance, HC3 Edge software, which is available to large multi-site customers and partners, is also introducing general software support for Intel NUC based systems from other hardware suppliers. HC3 Edge software will be available soon for Lenovo’s new Smart Edge portfolio of fan-less, small form factor PCs. 

“With no IT staff on site, downtime is a constant concern at each of our locations. Downtime can cost us tens of thousands of dollars, and therefore is not an option for Jerry’s Foods,” explained Jeff Miller, director of IT at Jerry’s Foods. “I was blown away by the simplicity and functionality of Scale Computing’s edge solutions. It’s making a huge impact on my day-to-day IT operations. With the addition of the HE150, distributed enterprises now have the ability to scale up or down depending on their edge computing needs. It’s a win-win!”

“A growing number of distributed organizations require infrastructure at the edge of the network, specifically at sites where there are limited IT staff available. With edge computing on the rise, organizations are requiring solutions that can fit small footprint requirements with robust application performance, while still being affordable, efficient and simple to manage remotely,” said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing. “This is why we created our newest HE150 appliance, making edge computing a financially viable and practical option for more organizations. Our ability to deliver HCI technology in a smaller form factor and lower price point is making edge computing capabilities and resources more accessible to many organizations.”

Kioxia introduces Twin BiCS FLASH, its 3D semicircular flash memory cell structure that helps boost bit density

Kioxia announced development of the initial three-dimensional (3D) semicircular split-gate flash memory cell structure “Twin BiCS FLASH” using specially designed semicircular Floating Gate (FG) cells. Twin BiCS FLASH achieves superior program slope and a larger program/erase window at a much smaller cell size compared to conventional circular Charge Trap (CT) cells. 

These attributes make this new cell design a promising candidate to surpass four bits per cell (QLC) for significantly higher memory density and fewer stacking layers. This technology was announced at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco, California.

3D flash memory technology has achieved high bit density with low cost per bit by increasing the number of cell stacked layers as well as by implementing multilayer stack deposition and high aspect ratio etching. In recent years, as the number of cell layers exceeds 100, managing the trade-offs among etch profile control, size uniformity and productivity is becoming increasingly challenging. 

To overcome this problem, Kioxia developed a new semicircular cell design by splitting the gate electrode in the conventional circular cell to reduce cell size compared to the conventional circular cell, enabling higher-density memory at a lower number of cell layers.

The circular control gate provides a larger program window with relaxed saturation problems when compared with a planar gate because of the curvature effect, where carrier injection through the tunnel dielectric is enhanced while electron leakage to the block (BLK) dielectric is lowered. In this split-gate cell design, the circular control gate is symmetrically divided into two semicircular gates to take advantage of the strong improvement in the program/erase dynamics. 

The conductive storage layer is employed for high charge trapping efficiency in conjunction with the high-k BLK dielectrics, achieving high coupling ratio to gain program window as well as reduced electron leakage from the FG, thus relieving the saturation issue. The experimental program/erase characteristics reveal that the semicircular FG cells with the high-k-based BLK exhibit significant gains in the program slope and program/erase window over the larger-sized circular CT cells. 

The semicircular FG cells, having superior program/erase characteristics, are expected to attain comparably tight QLC Vt distributions at small cell size. Further, integration of low-trap Si channel makes possible more than four bits/cell, e.g., Penta-Level Cell (PLC). These results confirm that semicircular FG cells are a viable option to pursue higher bit density.

Going forward, Kioxia’s research and development efforts aimed at innovation in flash memory will include continuing Twin BiCS FLASH development and seeking its practical applications.

Kanguru debuts OS Agnostic, its fingerprint encrypted access flash drive with remote management capability

Kanguru launched its OS Agnostic, its Fingerprint Access Hardware Encrypted Flash Drive with remote management capability. This biometric fingerprint access flash drive supplants the bulky pinpads and fussy combo keypads of encrypted devices, making it convenient and easy to use. 

With the tap of the finger, the Kanguru Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint Hardware Encrypted Flash Drive provides quick access to encrypted files.

The Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint Encrypted Flash Drive is OS platform agnostic; 256-bit hardware encryption (XTS Mode); and assigns multi-finger access for each fingerprint or user(s). It also features new command console with onboard browser; option to remotely manage with Kanguru Remote Management Console (KRMC); and comes with optional on-board antivirus, real-time scanning protection by BitDefender. It is also RSA-2048 digitally-signed secure firmware and TAA compliant.

Being OS Agnostic, the Defender Bio-Elite30 can be used on virtually any machine, from Windows and MacOS, to medical equipment, smart TVs and even ATMs for making bank machine updates. This makes it highly versatile for all types of industries.

With best-in-class AES 256-Bit hardware encryption, the new biometric fingerprint encrypted flash drive allows a user to assign multiple finger access for themselves, and/or others whom they authorize. Permissions can be enabled for full read/write secure entry, or read only restricted access to allow users to simply view the encrypted files.

The Defender Bio-Elite30 Fingerprint secure flash drive is USB powered, rising above all other competitive devices that require a battery which could fail at the worst possible time.

Global enterprise external OEM storage systems market revenue grows by a mere 1.3 percent for the third quarter, IDC reveals

According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, global spending on enterprise external OEM storage systems grew 1.3 percent year over year to US$6.6 billion during the third quarter of this year. 

Total external OEM storage capacity shipments were up 6.8 percent year over year to 17.3 exabytes during the quarter. Revenue generated by the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale data centers declined 6.8 percent year over year in the thrid quarter this year to $5.8 billion. 

Total market capacity shipments (External OEM + ODM Direct + Server-Based Storage) declined 13.9 percent to 98.8 exabytes.

Dell Technologies was the largest enterprise external OEM storage systems supplier during the quarter, accounting for 31.5 percent of global revenue. NetApp and HPE/New H3C Group tied for second with 9.9 percent and 9.6 percent of the market, respectively. 

Huawei, Hitachi, and IBM tied for the fourth position with revenue shares of 7.0 percent, 6.2 percent and 6.0 percent, respectively. Despite growing and gaining market share during the third quarter, Pure Storage and Lenovo did not finish among the top 5 companies. 

The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated $2.58 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 11.7 percent year over year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) market was worth slightly less than $2.54 billion in revenue, down 1.7 percent from the third quarter last year. 

On a geographic basis, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) grew the fastest of any region, up 12.5 percent year over year. Japan grew 2.5 percent; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) was down 1.0 percent; and the Americas declined 2.7 percent. China as a standalone country grew 20.4 percent year over year in the third quarter this year.

PAC Storage enhances data storage performance with scale-out NAS, latest controllers, and 32Gb FC / 25GbE connectivity

PAC Storage (PAC) has announced three latest enhancements to their existing line of hardware: scale-out NAS systems, next generation controllers, and 32Gb FC and 25GbE host boards. Each enhancement dramatically accelerates system performance, providing tremendous benefits to a variety of industries and applications including database, analytics, virtualization, motion media, file sharing, cloud data integration, data science and AI.

The all-new Scale-Out NAS systems product line supports 100+ Gbps performance and scaling to more than 100 PB capacity. These solutions allow capacity and performance to be increased by horizontally adding another node (array) to the system.

PAC Storage is an enterprise data storage hardware solution. Since 2005, PAC SAN solutions have been data center cornerstones nationwide for primary, secondary, backup, and disaster recovery. In 2017, PAC introduced PS storage solutions which offer SAN and NAS, and include cloud gateway options. Offering the ideal price point, PAC feature-rich solutions are renowned for no single point of failure and scalability to petabytes of on-premise storage.

These scale-out NAS systems are joined by new Next Generation Controllers featuring up to twelve cores of the latest Intel CPU technology. Improvements also include doubling the controller cache to 512GBs, enabling PAC controllers to now boost performance by up to 80 percent, fulfilling the demanding requirements of today’s intensive enterprise data environments. 

Both PAC Storage PS and PAC All Flash product lines will feature the next generation controllers with all flash designed to deliver optimal SSD performance and response times of less than 0.35 milliseconds, as well as up to 900K IOPS and 10,000/5,500 MB/s read/write speed.

PAC Scale-Out NAS supports adding more nodes achieving more performance and capacity via a clustered system with up to 100 plus GBps read/write speed and more then a 100PBs of storage for the needs of future data growth.   

PAC also supports auto-balancing function that supports distribution of data across all nodes in the system. When a large number of users access data simultaneously, the system share the workload through parallel processing, solving the problem of a single node performance limitation and improving the access e­­fficiently.  

To prevent critical data loss and ensure continuous storage services PACs Scale-Out system is designed with the support of multi-layer data protection on hard drives, notes, and cluster levels. If any of the elements fails, neither the data will be lost nor the performance will be affected.  

If a single node failure is detected, PAC initiates self-healing function to recover the data from the faulty node. On a cluster level, users can use the Rsync feature for remote backup of the cluster file to remote cluster or remote NAS.   

Rounding out the new PAC Storage enhancements are 32Gb FC and 25GbE host boards which enable enterprise customers to migrate to the new networking standards for data access acceleration. The 32Gb FC and 25GbE host connectivity more than double system bandwidth via a single lane, making the storage infrastructure more scalable and flexible. 

"With this solution, we’ve truly hit it out of the park,” said PAC CEO Rick Crane. “The new scale-ut version of NAS is an outstanding and innovative alternative for our Isilon customers looking for a scale-out environment that’s simple to administer and easy on their budget. Even better, they can take advantage of the Next Generation technology in this product, as well as in our existing portfolio of SAN/NAS."

KIOXIA America debuts initial 512GB automotive UFS that advances systems and applications for autonomous vehicles

KIOXIA America, formerly Toshiba Memory America, announced that it has begun sampling its 512 gigabyte (GB) Automotive Universal Flash Storage (UFS) JEDEC Version 2.1 embedded memory solution. 

KIOXIA America’s Automotive UFS supports a wide temperature range (-40°C to +105°C), meets AEC-Q100 Grade24 requirements, and offers the extended reliability required by various automotive applications. The 512GB device joins the company’s existing lineup of automotive UFS, which includes capacities of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.

To meet this demand for large-capacity memory, KIOXIA’s new 512GB Automotive UFS memory was developed, which integrates the company’s BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and a controller in a single package. 512GB Automotive UFS features several functions ideal to the requirements of automotive applications including Refresh, Thermal Control and Extended Diagnosis. 

The Refresh function can be used to refresh data stored in UFS and helps extend the data’s lifespan. The Thermal Control function protects the device from overheating in the high-temperature circumstances that can occur in automotive applications. Lastly, the Extended Diagnosis function helps the host processor understand the device’s status.

Innovations such as autonomous vehicles, more advanced infotainment systems, digital clusters, telematics, and ADAS provide not only an elevated driver experience but also a greater demand for storage within vehicles.

KIOXIA’s KumoScale software offers cross-domain volume replication; boosts data protection with disaggregated NVMe flash storage

KIOXIA America Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America), announced that the v3.11 of its KumoScale storage software with NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) now includes cross-domain volume replication. With this new feature, KumoScale offers data protection at the storage layer while maintaining NVMe flash performance and low latency.

KIOXIA’s KumoScale storage software makes flash storage accessible over a data center network – allowing data centers to run more efficiently. To address the inefficiencies associated with direct-attached storage (DAS) architectures, KumoScale software disaggregates high-performance NVMe SSDs from compute nodes and shares them across a network infrastructure as network-attached resources.

KumoScale software is a high-performance block storage software suite for on-premise clouds. Combining the speed and responsiveness of born-in-the-cloud software with the staying power of one of the world's largest flash memory makers, KumoScale software uses NVMe technology to enable “flash-as–a-service."

Many databases and applications require their storage systems to provide resilience against drive failure and across arbitrary failure domains. These domains can include racks, aisles – or entire data centers. KumoScale software’s cross-domain replication makes data protection available and easy to flexibly deploy.

KumoScale software’s data center-level approach to resilience against drive failure or network partition allows users to specify arbitrary failure domains using tags. When provisioning volumes, KumoScale software will create volume replicas across multiple KumoScale appliances located in different failure domains for rack-level resiliency. This addresses both equipment failure and maintenance downtime scenarios, and can be provided to only those applications or storage classes that require it.

KIOXIA designed KumoScale software to deliver NVMe flash as a service – enabling cost-effective, networked flash performance close to that of local (in-server) NVMe SSDs.

“Cloud-native applications typically offer data protection by replicating shards at the database layer,” noted Joel Dedrick, vice president and general manager, networked storage software, KIOXIA America, Inc. “However, in our experience, few customers are 100% cloud native – there are always a few legacy applications that depend on the storage layer to provide data protection. KumoScale software’s cross-domain volume replication is designed to provide the flexibility to protect data for entrenched applications while not forcing a one-size-fits-all solution across a company’s workloads.”

Pavilion secures VMware Ready status for its Hyperparallel flash array offering; boosts data management features

Pavilion Data Systems announced Monday release 2.3 of its Hyperparallel Flash Array with VMware Ready status. The no-compromise enterprise storage platform now supports a complete suite of data management features for consolidation of VM sprawl and native Container Storage Interface (CSI) for simplified migration to PKS, Docker and Kubernetes containers. 

Release 2.3 includes native VMware support for vCenter, VMware Ready support for NFS along with backward compatibility for block-based iSCSI connectivity. Release 2.3 has been beta tested with numerous customers worldwide and is currently available.

The system is capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of Virtual Machines across 72 standard NVMe SSDs with capacities reaching 1+ PB using 16 TB NVMe drives. All of the Pavilion data management functions, including snapshots, thin provisioning, encryption and RAID-6 volume provisioning are now enabled under VMware vCenter for simplicity of scaling and consolidating enterprise VM sprawl.

One of the customers for Pavilion’s VMware consolidation is the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). CBS selected Pavilion over several traditional all-flash arrays based on performance and footprint manageability. 

Last month, Pavilion Data Systems announced record-breaking results of STAC-M3 benchmarks in a new Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC) Report.

The STAC-M3 benchmark specifications are maintained by the STAC Benchmark Council, which consists of more than 300 financial institutions and more than 50 vendor organizations. User firms include the largest global banks, brokerage houses, exchanges, hedge funds, proprietary trading shops, and other market participants. 

Such firms designed the STAC-M3 benchmark suite to represent a common set of performance-related challenges in financial time-series analytics. The STAC-M3 results were audited by the STAC, which facilitates the Council.

A solution using the Pavilion Data Hyperparallel Flash Array populated with standard SSDs for the test produced world-record performance in four analytical benchmarks against all other publicly disclosed systems, including systems with direct-attached storage and Intel Optane drives. The Pavilion array came ahead of all other publicly disclosed solutions involving kdb+ and flash arrays in eight tick analytics benchmarks.

“Release 2.3 extends Pavilion’s leadership from webscale and HPC customers directly into the heart of the Fortune 100 where VMware is the predominant operating environment,” said Gurpreet Singh, Pavilion CEO. “By natively supporting VMware NFS, demonstrating the upcoming VMware-native NVMe-oF functionality and enabling all of our data management functions inside vCenter, we enable orders of magnitude more consolidation than the nearest competitor and simplify operations in a familiar way for VMware administrators.”

Pavilion Data announced in August that its Series C funding of US$25 million, bringing the total funding to $58 million. New investors are Taiwania Capital and RPS Ventures.

All existing investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Korea Investment Partners, DAG Ventures, Artiman Ventures, SK Telecom, and Tyche Partners participated in this round. The investment will accelerate the delivery of the company's NVMe-oF products, expanding to new markets, and growing the team to support customer demand.