EE Times - New ASIC drives Alacritectr inlo storage
`
`Pase I of2
`
`EXH]BII
`
`ryr
`
`Alr
`
`tvtu'l..+Lt
`
`q,\
`
`6
`
`a IEs
`
`ti"r il r;". .i
`l\r irlla'lr.::
`!r'+
`tr "".
`'
`I l**tr * "rirl fi ,mr*:r.lriit]
`
`]TE$
`
`II
`
`1' - r ':-r:-l-
`
`!'" i
`
`EE
`
`h
`
`News & Analysis
`t'lew ASIG drives Alacritech into storage
`Rick Merritt
`1/i 1/2C i1 05:i 8 Plil EST
`Post a cornment
`
`Tweel
`
`ghrra
`
`SAN JOSE. Calif. - Alacritech is reinventing itself as a storage systems supplier, after failing
`to gain a position in the 10 Gbit Ethernet neprorkiftg market. The company's fifth-generation
`ASIC processes Network File System jobs in hardware to address bottlenecks in storage
`nelworks.
`
`Alacritech helped pioneer processing Transrnission Control Protocol on specialized chips to
`offload a job thal was swamping host prccessors at gigabit and higher Etherftet data rates.
`But it failed to deliver a competitive 10 Gbit Ethernet product at a tirne rvhen Alacritech's so-
`called TOE technology was becoming one fealure o{ a broader o{'fering.
`
`At least four chip rnakers-Broadcom. Chelsio, Emulex and Qlo$ic*now offet'10G Elhemet
`chips with TOE. But increasingly ttley are also supporting f€atures such as vidualization and
`hardware acceleraiion for protocols such as iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ether$et. said
`Bob Whe€ler, a senior analyst at the l-inley Group (Mounlain View, Calif.).
`
`Alacritech "tried to develop [a 10G TOE chip]. but it lacked som6 other features, and it wasn't
`adequate 10 lust have TOE." Wheeler said.
`Thre ccmpany did get Eroadcom, Miciosoft and ottlers to license its TOE technoiogy. "b t it
`never went anywhere.'' said Alscritech founder and chief executive Larry Eoucher.
`
`lr,{icrosoft had internatr debatcs about its approach to nehrvork offload. lt eventually rolled out
`so-calied Chimney software fcr Windows Server, but it faiied to provide a drarnatic
`perforrnance boost for system$ tlral mostly suffeted from under-utiiization. an lssue now
`being addressed by vi*ualizatioft technology, Boucher said.
`
`"We only had limited fringe of petpl€
`TOEl." said tsoircher.
`
`ttyinE to get performance out of Windows systems [v'/ith
`
`"Broadcom drrives [TOE] l']ard to differefitiate itself frorn lntel [in Ethernet 6hips]," Boucher
`said" "lBM aligned with lntel [in nol supporting TOE and Chimney], and HP and Dell are both
`promoteTs olChimney, but it's all marketing because it's difficult tc see horv Chimney does
`anything usetul," he said, noting Alacritech still has licer, sing revenue for the technology.
`
`https ://u'*,w-.eetirnes. com./document.asp?doc_id=
`
`1 25 8323&prirnt=yes
`
`5t2tzAl8
`
`INTEL EX. 1227.001
`
`

`

`EE Times - New ASIC driives Alacritech into storage
`
`Page 2 af 2
`
`Giverl the situation. Alacritech revamped its plans fcr a 10 Gbit Ethe rnet ASIC. lnstead of just
`supporting TOE for networking itr added hardwaro support for haftdling the Network File
`System used for data center storage.
`
`'We've go e beck and done what we though! wauld be next big step ift file serving
`performance." said Boucher.
`
`The new ASIC powers Alacritech's Al'lX 1500. a ftew kind of 6ccelerator appllance that aims
`to break perfo.mance bottlenecks i large network-attached storage installations.
`The ANX 1500 holds as niuch as four Terabytes of flash in 20 solid state drives and 48
`Gbyles of DRAl,ii to cache the most heavily accessed data from large NAS networks- The
`ASIC uses NFS Hocessing in hardware to quickly dscide whet data il needs to cache and
`the job of tetrieving it.
`TOE lo spe€d
`
`Thanks to its NFS support, the system can lrack a {ew million data attributes a second as
`opposed to a few hundred thousand per second for less intelligent caching systems sold by
`Network Appliance and others. Due its TOE support it carl rel.ieve data with tatency as low
`as 0.3 millisecondsloperalion.
`
`A system wilh two Terabytes flash cosls $70,000. Tlne systems er€ available now and 3re
`already in use with several beta testers. "This is something of a new catesory, so it's difficult
`to guess how it will rarnp, but the beta site users will all become customers," satd Bouctrer.
`
`EMAIL THIS PRINT COMMENT
`
`More Related llinks
`
`BMW to Use lnrcviz Lidar for Autonomous Cars
`Driver lvlbnitoring 'Shut Up, Mom, I See ltl'
`
`ST Sees Sales Growtlr Despite Weak Smartphone Demand
`
`European Automakers to Add Alibaba Voic€ Assistant to Cars
`
`Who's the Lidar lP Leader?
`
`Copyright O 2Ci 8 UBM Eiectronics, A Aspenoore company, All righls iesen€d. Pnvacy Policy I Terms of
`Ser'/ice
`
`https ://wu,w.eetimes.oorn/docurnent.asp?doc_id= I 25 8 323 &prinryes
`
`5n/2018
`
`INTEL EX. 1227.002
`
`