Solid Access About

SOLID ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES

Chronology

2002: Solid Access Technologies LLC, a privately held Massachusetts corporation, was founded for the purpose of translating the new and innovative solid state disk technology it had developed into a range of enterprise SSD I/O accelerators.

February 2003: Solid Access was granted US patent 6,516,999 for an Unauthorized Data Storage Access Protection device; this technology was then utilized by a national bank in Europe.

March 2003: the first I/O acceleration appliance was introduced and the Universal Solid State Disk (USSD) was born.

April 2003: the first two USSD SCSI units were deployed within a fault tolerant infrastructure supporting a gas station chain's operation.

November 2004: Solid Access deployed for the first time more than 100GB of USSD capacity in a single sale.

2005: 3Gb/s SAS connectivity was introduced in April, followed by 4Gb/s Fibre Channel three months later, representing a giant step in connectivity option expansion.

2006: Solid Access became the first SSD manufacturer to display end user pricing online for the full range of its SSD products. Placing its first advertisement with www.storagesearch.com, the company opened up a wide range of USSD application opportunities. Solid Access entered and won competitive bids for large database application SSDs, including those with the US government and the European Commission. The Solid Access I/O Multipathing Solution was introduced in August. USSD 200 SAS and FC benchmarks reached access times under 20 microseconds, which solidified Solid Access' price /performance leadership position in the ultra-fast enterprise class SSD market segment.

Vision

Solid Access Technologies’ development activity over the past 5 years was fueled by the recognition that in order to achieve a balanced system, the electro-mechanical deficiencies of spindle-based storage would have to be overcome. To accomplish this, the most critical I/O demanding segments of commercial applications would have to be placed on a medium with electronic access speed. Our goal was to develop technology that would result in an unprecedented level of SSD device production efficiency and user cost savings, thus motivating mainstream users to place their entire databases and other applications on silicon-based storage.

Challenge

Being able to deliver the benefits of SSDs to mainstream markets necessitated a fundamental shift in SSD technology that would result in a transparent and convincing rationale for wide scale adoption of SSD solutions. The ultra-fast SSD industry was one of the last "closed" areas that relied on proprietary hardware components. This existed in the face of almost every computer IT hardware platform moving from proprietary to open architecture. We knew we had to do the same thing in order to gain the highest degree of efficiency possible. We wanted to create a new breed of SSD device using 100% standard unmodified building blocks - best-of-breed, proven hardware components.

Goals

To drive ultra fast SSD prices down and establish pricing transparency and stability without compromising performance, while increasing reliability and flexibility. We aim to achieve these goals in the context of a sustainable and highly scalable business model

How did we solve these challenges?

The key to the successful development of the Universal Solid State Disk was a combination of diverse technical expertise and freedom from preconceptions and belief structures about how our goals might be accomplished. We perceive ourselves as more of an organism than an organization. We are not constrained by creativity-stifling protocols that are entrenched in some of even the most prominent technology organizations. We pursue unorthodox approaches and rapidly explore design alternatives. . Within an environment where these barriers are removed, creativity is unleashed, allowing remarkable innovations to emerge.

The USSD is a firmware-driven innovation based on patent pending technology, merging disk drive emulation of SSD with the rapid advancement and superior economics of server ecosystem building blocks. The components we use are of proven reliability, already deployed in the world’s top data centers in unit volumes of tens of thousands. To make this possible, Solid Access has developed a cadre of partnerships and alliances that range from independent free agents to multibillion dollar corporations.

Results

Our team developed technology that represents a dramatic leap forward in the area of hard disk emulation. The company’s core product – the Universal Solid State Disk (USSD) – delivers the full performance of enterprise-level solid state disks at a fraction of the cost of conventional SSD products, without any compromise in performance or reliability This disruptive technology delivers the first affordable means of conquering I/O bottlenecks in transaction-intensive enterprise applications, and it allows complete transfer of large scale databases to memory-based storage, to run at almost RAM speed.

Our new breed of I/O acceleration device represents the future of enterprise-class SSD technology which will both close the server-storage "performance gap" and be affordable in mainstream applications..

Who are the key players?

Solid Access Technologies was established by three individuals with very diverse backgrounds – an extraordinarily talented technologist who resides in Prague, a resourceful international IT entrepreneur, and a seasoned US. corporate executive experienced with the innovation process in a variety of corporate settings. Collaboration and laser-beam focus was fundamental to eliciting the best from each key player. We think the results speak for themselves.

Senior management

Tomas Havrda – Managing Partner, obtained degrees from The School of Film and
Broadcasting and the State Music Conservatory of the Czech
Republic. Since 1992, he has led entrepreneurial enterprises establishing
advanced computer technologies in emerging Central European markets. For
more than a decade, he has been CEO of Amecon Inc., Stratus Technologies’ fault-tolerant server distributor and Customer Assistance Center (CAC) operator in Central Europe.

Jaroslav Belonoznik – Chief Technologist, obtained a Bachelor of
Science degree in mathematics and information technology from the Charles
University of Prague, Czech Republic. He has designed computer software
and hardware components for 17 years, which has lead to a number of
international patents.

Jerome Ruzicka – Managing Partner, obtained degrees from Johns Hopkins
University and MIT. He has served as VP of R&D, VP of Marketing and Sales, and
Director of Corporate Development at leading technology-based companies.
Awarded five US patents, he has served as technology and marketing
consultant to a variety of international corporations.

What problem does Solid Access solve?

The CPU-hard drive performance gap drove USSD’s deployment. Multi core CPUs will only increase the continually growing "performance gap", which has been effectively described by Intel’s Knut Grimsrut:

” ….while capacities of hard drives have improved, latency continues to be a performance bottleneck. As CPU performance has improved some 30 times over the past decade, hard disk latency has improved only 1.3 times in the same period. It's so grossly out of whack that for many workloads the disk drive ends up determining what the effective system performance is. As a CPU company, we obviously care about that."

Growing performance and efficiency demands placed on data centers require IT managers to deploy a proper I/O platform based on an application I/O profile. For random I/O hungry application segments, SSD (sub 20 micro-seconds access time) is the answer. The USSD 200 is a hardware solution to a hardware-related problem; its impact on system performance is instant, dramatic and non-disruptive. The USSD 200 helps IT managers accelerate the application, add concurrent users, shorten the batch processing windows and eliminate the risk of an underutilized server CPU and over-configured storage. This allows companies to extract maximum value from existing IT infrastructure.

What differentiates USSD 200 from its SSD competitors?

The primary difference between Solid Access USSD and its competitors is a novel design architecture that achieves efficiency on multiple levels and breaks the cost barrier that had previously restricted SSD applications. By procuring proven industry standard components on a just-in-time basis and manufacturing to order according to strict specifications, the company’s business model involves minimal real estate, manufacturing, overhead, and inventory costs. This translates into a fully functional, reliable, compact, plug-and-play SSD with unsurpassed performance that is now affordable and readily deployed in mainstream IT applications.

See USSD technology benefits at:

http://www.solidaccess.com/documents/New_IO_Economy.pdf

When designing USSD 200, what key decisions were made?

Component vendor selection was a very important step in Solid Access USSD technology’s evolution, especially the HBA vendor. The key for us was to get an impressive internal performance of USSD "right out of the box", and that is where HBAs enter the picture. Based on everything we could learn at the time, we made our HBA vendor decision, choosing to go with LSI Logic. In retrospect we could not have made a better decision.

LSI Logic’s industry leadership, comprehensive HBA portfolio, product support and openness to new ideas were clear advantages. Solid Access’ partnership with LSI Logic demonstrates how emerging companies can effectively cooperate with large established campus-based organizations to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions.

USSD 200 offers the most flexible interfacing – multi-protocol access via 4Gb/s Fibre Channel, 320MB/s SCSI and 3Gb/s SAS Interfaces - of any SSD available today.

USSD 200 SAS is the industry's first and since April 2005, the only SSD with a 3Gb/s SAS Interface.

Note: USSD 200 SAS record benchmarks are as follows:

72,052 IOPS on a single SAS wide port, with an access time of 15 micro-seconds and maximum bandwidth of 747 MB/s.

Who is the prototype USSD technology customer, and how does the solution improve the customer's application?

Not only big-budget HPC customers are deploying the USSD 200 solution. The high interest in largely untapped market segments populated by mid size and small companies is consistent with our original vision, perhaps signaling the mainstream SSD adapter phase arrival.

I/O bottlenecks generate unused capacity throughout any system’s network, resulting in a lot of wasted resources, regardless of company size.

For example, iGlass Networks deployed the USSD 200 SAS (2 x 32GB - mirrored configuration) solution and immediately experienced the following benefits: plug-and-play installation, non-disruptive solution integration, dramatic improvement in application productivity, and the ability to employ concurrent users without performance degradation. The end result was a more efficient, truly balanced system. iGlass experienced a much improved utilization of existing technology that led to server consolidation and data center downsizing, while improving overall ROI and TCO.

Note: iGLASS Networks, (www.iglass.net), a SaaS (Software as a Service) provider of innovative, outsourced network monitoring solutions for companies of all sizes nationwide. Their application is mission critical with a 24/7 availability requirement

Summary

Today’s latest USSD generation 200 series is the pinnacle of our product line, serving both established and emerging SSD markets.

USSD 200: a new breed of I/O accelerators based on paradigm-changing innovation, breaking through the enterprise SSD cost barrier, and delivering the extraordinary performance benefits of DDR-SDRAM SSD at an affordable cost.