Converged

Multiple functionalities Integrated into one chassis

Converged IP Services Delivery and Content Hosting Platform

Computing, mass storage, and communications capabilities integrated into a single dynamically scalable system, interconnect by a high speed, non-blocking optical switch fabric that insures the highest possible system throughput.

Seamless

Storage, computing, and communications capabilities are merged in a “unifying” architecture that eliminates the BW bottlenecks and management complexities that result when interconnecting separate components.

Shuttle

Carriage with SBC and proprietary hardware configured to slip into the chassis seamlessly

SBC

Single Board Computer

Dynamic Scalability

The ability to scale the system without taking the system off-line or disrupting service.

Backplane

(bak´plān) (n.) A circuit board containing sockets into which other circuit boards can be plugged in. In the context of PCs, the term backplane refers to the large circuit board that contains sockets for expansion cards.

Backplanes are often described as being either active or passive. Active backplanes contain, in addition to the sockets, logical circuitry that performs computing functions. In contrast, passive backplanes contain almost no computing circuitry.

Traditionally, most PCs have used active backplanes. Indeed, the terms motherboard and backplane have been synonymous. Recently, though, there has been a move toward passive backplanes, with the active components such as the CPU inserted on an additional card. Passive backplanes make it easier to repair faulty components and to upgrade to new components.

Isolated Backplane

Each SBC has its own independent backplane to remove the backplane as a single point of failure

Quadrant

Symbol to the left of the word quad on the logo symbolizing the missing link within the Triple-Play. PERFORMANCE  

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

(pronounced as separate letters) Short for Serial Attached SCSI, an evolution of parallel SCSI into a point-to-point serial peripheral interface in which controllers are linked directly to disk drives. SAS is a performance improvement over traditional SCSI because SAS enables multiple devices (up to 128) of different sizes and types to be connected simultaneously with thinner and longer cables; its full-duplex signal transmission supports 3.0Gb/s. In addition, SAS drives can be hot-plugged.

In topologies with more than two connected devices, SAS calls for the use of expander devices to allow for more than one host to connect to more than one peripheral.

SAS devices can communicate with both SATA and SCSI devices (the backplanes of SAS devices are identical to SATA devices). A key difference between SCSI and SAS devices is the addition in SAS devices of two data ports, each of which resides in a different SAS domain. This enables complete failover redundancy as if one path fails; there is still communication along a separate and independent path.

Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)

(1) Short for Advanced Technology Attachment, a disk drive implementation that integrates the controller on the disk drive itself. There are several versions of ATA, all developed by the Small Form Factor (SFF) Committee:

ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2.

Ultra-ATA: Also called Ultra-DMA, ATA-33, and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps.

ATA/66: A version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that doubles ATA's throughput to 66 MBps.

ATA/100: An updated version of ATA/66 that increases data transfer rates to 100 MBps.

ATA also is called Parallel ATA. Contrast with Serial ATA.

Serial ATA

Often abbreviated SATA or S-ATA, an evolution of the Parallel ATA physical storage interface. Serial ATA is a serial link -- a single cable with a minimum of four wires creates a point-to-point connection between devices. Transfer rates for Serial ATA begin at 150MBps. One of the main design advantages of Serial ATA is that the thinner serial cables facilitate more efficient airflow inside a form factor and also allow for smaller chassis designs. In contrast, IDE cables used in parallel ATA systems are bulkier than Serial ATA cables and can only extend to 40cm long, while Serial ATA cables can extend up to one meter.

Serial ATA supports all ATA and ATAPI devices.

Fibre Channel or Fiber Channel

A serial data transfer architecture developed by a consortium of computer and mass storage device manufacturers and now being standardized by ANSI. The most prominent Fibre Channel standard is Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL).

FC-AL was designed for new mass storage devices and other peripheral devices that require very high bandwidth. Using optical fiber to connect devices, FC-AL supports full-duplex data transfer rates of 100MBps. FC-AL is compatible with, and is expected to eventually replace, SCSI for high-performance storage systems.

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

(rād) Short for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, a category of disk drives that employ two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally necessary for personal computers.

There are number of different RAID levels:

Level 0 -- Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance: Provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disk drives) but no redundancy. This improves performance but does not deliver fault tolerance. If one drive fails then all data in the array is lost.

Level 1 -- Mirroring and Duplexing: Provides disk mirroring. Level 1 provides twice the read transaction rate of single disks and the same write transaction rate as single disks.

Level 2 -- Error-Correcting Coding: Not a typical implementation and rarely used, Level 2 stripes data at the bit level rather than the block level.

Level 3 -- Bit-Interleaved Parity: Provides byte-level striping with a dedicated parity disk. Level 3, which cannot service simultaneous multiple requests, also is rarely used.

Level 4 -- Dedicated Parity Drive: A commonly used implementation of RAID, Level 4 provides block-level striping (like Level 0) with a parity disk. If a data disk fails, the parity data is used to create a replacement disk. A disadvantage to Level 4 is that the parity disk can create write bottlenecks.

Level 5 -- Block Interleaved Distributed Parity: Provides data striping at the byte level and also stripe error correction information. This results in excellent performance and good fault tolerance. Level 5 is one of the most popular implementations of RAID.

Level 6 -- Independent Data Disks with Double Parity: Provides block-level striping with parity data distributed across all disks.

Level 0+1 – A Mirror of Stripes: Not one of the original RAID levels, two RAID 0 stripes are created, and a RAID 1 mirror is created over them. Used for both replicating and sharing data among disks.

Level 10 – A Stripe of Mirrors: Not one of the original RAID levels, multiple RAID 1 mirrors are created, and a RAID 0 stripe is created over these.

Level 7: A trademark of Storage Computer Corporation that adds caching to Levels 3 or 4.

RAID S: EMC Corporation's proprietary striped parity RAID system used in its Symmetrix storage systems.