Enhanced OpenFlex™ Data24 Platform Powered by the New RapidFlex Fabric Bridge Device and Ultrastar Dual-Port NVMe™ SSDs Simplifies NVMe-oF™ Deployment for Next-Generation Disaggregated Storage
Western Digital boosts data center capabilities with upgraded OpenFlex Data24 3200 NVMe-oF JBOF/Storage Platform, advanced RapidFlex A2000 and C2000 NVMe-oF fabric bridge devices, and the innovative Ultrastar DC SN655 PCIe® Gen 4.0 dual-port NVMe SSD. These solutions create a versatile ecosystem, streamlining NVMe and NVMe-oF deployment for enhanced customer options.
“NVMe-oF is poised to revolutionize modern data center infrastructure as it can unlock the performance of NVMe SSDs while efficiently sharing and scaling flash across multiple servers and applications,” said Randy Kerns, senior strategist at The Futurum Group.
Fully Integrated OpenFlex Data24 3200 NVMe-oF Storage Platform
The Western Digital OpenFlex Data24 3200 is a fully integrated NVMe-oF storage platform that extends the performance of NVMe flash to a shared storage architecture. By separating storage resources from compute, and sharing it over Ethernet, OpenFlex Data24 becomes widely available to multiple applications and servers, allowing for greater resource control and scalability, leading to improved storage utilization without overprovisioning.
Next-Generation RapidFlex FBDs: the A2000 ASIC and the C2000 Fabric Bridge PCIe Adapter Card
The RapidFlex family of NVMe over fabric bridge devices provide the foundational building blocks for OEMs/ODMs and large organizations taking a DIY approach to their software-defined infrastructure to enable next-generation workloads based on highly scalable shared storage across an Ethernet fabric. These second-generation low-power, high-performance FBDs come in two versions: the RapidFlex A2000 controller, and the RapidFlex C2000 that places the A2000 chip on a PCI adapter for powering solutions like the new OpenFlex Data24.
The new RapidFlex FBD is a unique state machine that exports the PCI bus over Ethernet, allowing externally connected SSDs to appear as if they were local to the server. The new family also doubles performance with an additional 100 GbE port (2x100Gb ethernet ports) matched to 16 lanes of PCIe Gen 4.0, and provides a PCIe root complex within all NVMe all-flash arrays, making it easy to qualify and deploy. The A2000 and C2000 FBDs add initiator mode capability to the existing target mode capability so customers can now deploy more cost-effective and lower power initiator cards in their servers instead of a conventional Ethernet NIC for NVMe-oF connectivity.
Enterprise-class Ultrastar DC SN655 Dual-Port NVMe SSD
The Ultrastar DC SN655 is a cost-effective, dual-port, high-capacity PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD designed for cloud, OEM and enterprise customers who need high-performance, high-capacity storage for a variety of applications and workloads such as disaggregated storage, object storage, storage servers and other mission-critical applications.
“With NVMe disaggregated storage becoming the reality, along with the exponential growth of data, our goal is to provide data architects with reliable and trusted SSDs and simplified NVMe-oF solutions to help them future-proof their storage strategy and deliver uncompromised performance at scale to meet the ever-changing workload demands,”
Kurt Chan, vice president and general manager of Western Digital’s Platforms business.