Supermicro OEM of Dot Hill

Dot Hill Systems Corporation entered into an OEM agreement with Supermicro, Inc., in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology, to incorporate its Virtual RAID Adapter (AssuredVRA) software into Supermicro AMD-based server solutions.

This integrated solution is available to Supermicro customers worldwide.

AssuredVRA replaces traditional RAID-on-motherboard (ROMB) offerings with a data protection solution for internal storage that rivals more expensive add-in card-based RAID controllers. Eliminating the need for such controllers along with the associated power, cooling and support costs, Virtual RAID Adapter software enables businesses to lower storage costs while providing data protection and management for compute-intensive applications.

“Supermicro has become a market leader by delivering first-to-market advantages, optimized technologies and a range of high performance server solutions that lower customers’ total cost of investment,” said Garret Wein, VP of WW OEM sales, Dot Hill. “With a worldwide reach and a presence in many of our key vertical markets such as big data, HPC, oil & gas, and media & entertainment, Supermicro is a highly synergistic go-to-market partner for our AssuredVRA technology. We continue to see demand from OEM customers for this innovative technology, which allows manufacturers to support high-performance RAID protection for disk drives inside their AMD-based computing solutions.“

“Supermicro’s wide range of AMD-based server solutions lead the industry with maximum performance, efficiency and reliability,” said Don Clegg, VP marketing and business development, Supermicro. “Dot Hill’s AssuredVRA technology combined with our dual and multi-processor platforms offers customers the most advanced options available for building high-performance RAID-protected arrays out of internal server storage. Our unique and innovative solution ensures maximum data integrity with the advantage of overall reduced system costs.“

AssuredVRAAlternative to Hardware and Software Based RAID
AssuredVRA technology enables client, server, storage and motherboard vendors to integrate RAID technology into their products by leveraging the power of today’s multi-core CPUs instead of a dedicated and ROC-based RAID add-in board, helping to reduce hardware, power, cooling and support costs. Basic AssuredVRA and enhanced AssuredVRA products support the built-in core logic SATA ports that come as part of these systems, enabling vendors to add RAID-0, -1, -5, -10 capability to these otherwise unused, built-in SATA controllers, without the need for a more expensive ROC based solution.

AssuredVRA technology leverages a sophisticated RAID software stack, enabling computer systems with both HDDs and SSDs support to process RAID tasks without compromising performance needed for other operations. Its write-caching engine provides performance that often exceeds that of competing host software RAID stacks or ROC-based adapter cards. Because Virtual RAID Adapters are software-based, they can incorporate other data protection services, such as n-way mirroring schemes, to support simple, transparent and cost-effective system backup and recovery.

AssuredVRA technology’s key features include:

• Single, unified O/S driver and single-pane web-based management suite capable of managing RAID sets on both core logic SATA and SAS/SATA I/O controllers.
• Performance enhancements for SSD drives, including TRIM support which internally wipes unused blocks of data.
• Native support for multiple motherboard vendors that use the AMD SP5100 and other supported AMD chipsets.
• OS support – Windows 7, 8, 8.1, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012 R2, RHEL 6.X, SLES 11; Ubuntu Client, Win PE.
• 4K native drive support and Serial General Purpose Input/Output (SGPIO) LED support.
• Support for basic RAID-0, -1, -10 features or higher featured RAID-0, -1, -5, -10 schemes.
• Hidden arrays and split mirror.
• Support for mixed capacity drives allowing 100% usage of all disk capacity available.
• Logical Array Secure Erase.
• RAIDAble support allows RAIDAble arrays to be transformed to R-0 or R-1 with new drive auto detection.