STA Plugfest Showcases Continued SAS Innovation and Interoperability

The SNIA SCSI Trade Association (STA) Community brought together leading storage technology companies for its latest Plugfest, held at SNIA Developer Conference, September 27-30 in Santa Clara, California. The event provided a collaborative, vendor-neutral environment for hands-on interoperability testing and validation of the latest SAS technologies.Companies from across the SAS ecosystem attended this Plugfest to test products and implementations, identify potential interoperability issues, and collaborate on the continued evolution of SAS technology.

This year’s Plugfest featured several key areas of testing:

• The first preliminary test of proposed spec SCSI to NVMe  Translation (SNT) testing, expanding the scope of interoperability testing at the STA Plugfest
• SBC-5 testing, providing hands-on testing of new capabilities introduced in the latest SCSI Block Commands standard
• Managed cable testing, helping verify connectivity and interoperability across participating SAS components

Participating companies included AIC, Broadcom, ConnPro, KIOXIA, Microchip, Samsung, Seagate, Teledyne LeCroy, and Western Digital.

“STA Plugfests provide a valuable opportunity for companies across the SAS ecosystem to test their implementations together in a collaborative, vendor-neutral environment,” said Cameron T. Brett, Chair, SNIA STA Community. “This Plugfest expanded testing into new areas, including SNT and SBC-5, while continuing our focus on interoperability across the SAS ecosystem.”

SNT enables the SCSI driver to communicate with an NVMe drive, through tri-mode controller / adapter
Plugfests have been a hallmark of storage technology and are critical to bring products to market. The hands-on testing conducted at STA Plugfests helps participating companies identify and address interoperability challenges across products from multiple vendors. Bringing together manufacturers of storage devices, connectivity, controllers, and test equipment enables participants to test real-world implementations and collaborate directly with other members of the SAS ecosystem.