The vendor's flagship offering, the Pivot3 RAIGE (RAID Across Independent Gigabit Ethernet) Storage Cluster provides RAID protection across multiple, Ethernet-connected storage nodes. The nodes themselves--called Databanks--are built using "... industry-standard x86 servers and disk drives," and communicate via Gig Ethernet connections. Databanks are driven via a hardened Linux kernel that has been morphed into the vendor's RAIGE OS.

The vendor states that clients (which can be Windows Server, Red Hat Linux, or CentOS as of this writing) have direct access to all of the nodes in a cluster and can process data requests in parallel; each node is itself loaded with 12 500 GB, 750 GB, or 1 TB drives for a raw capacity of from 6 to 12 TB. Data is stored across the storage nodes in such a way that it is protected against drive, network, or Databank failure; specifically, RAIGE stripes data and parity across multiple Databanks. Capacity can be scaled up to "hundreds of terabytes," with each node adding its own CPU power, capacity, caching, etc. The vendor states that a proprietary algorithm is used to optimize the rebuild process.

Clients access the Databanks via the iSCSI protocol; and an optional (but recommended by the vendor) Pivot3 MPIO driver--which is included with the system--provides additional features including multi-path I/O, failover, and direct pathing to the Databank.

The platform provides virtualized block-based access to storage arrays, and configuration changes can be made non-disruptively and on-the-fly (data remains available through volume provisioning changes; and the vendor states that drives and Databanks of any size can be added non-disruptively). Management is via the RAIGE Director GUI, which operates from a PC that is attached to the same sub-net as the Databanks themselves (CLI management is also available). The Databanks are automatically discovered by the system and can be added to a new virtual array or an existing virtual array.

In addition to virtual storage, RAIGE also offers virtual server functionality with Pivot3 Serverless Computing. Based on Cloudbanks, essentially Databanks with improved hardware, the platform utilizes the Xen hypervisor to closely couple virtual application servers with the storage hardware for quicker I/O performance and to collapse layers of hardware and networking inherent to traditional setups.

The Pivot3 RAIGE Storage Cluster is available now, with pricing set at about $1,500/TB. Contact the vendor for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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