RAID Controller
A disk array controller is a device that manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It almost always implements hardware RAID, thus it is sometimes referred to as RAID controller. It also often provides additional disk cache. ''Disk array controller'' is often improperly shortened to '' disk controller''. The two should not be confused as they provide very different functionality. Front-end and back-end side A disk array controller provides front-end interfaces and back-end interfaces. * Back-end interface communicates with controlled disks. Hence protocol is usually ATA (a.k.a. PATA), SATA, SCSI, FC or SAS. * Front-end interface communicates with a computer's host adapter (HBA, Host Bus Adapter) and uses: ** one of ATA, SATA, SCSI, FC; these are popular protocols used by disks, so by using one of them a controller may transparently emulate a disk for a computer ** somewhat less popular protocol dedicated for a specific solution: FI ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disk Drives
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are considered by some as data storage. Recording may be accomplished with virtually any form of energy. Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve data. Data storage in a digital, machine-readable medium is sometimes called ''digital data''. Computer data storage is one of the core functions of a general-purpose computer. Electronic documents can be stored in much less space than paper documents. Barcodes and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) are two ways of recording machine-readable data on paper. Recording media A recording medium is a physical material that holds information. Newly created information is distributed and can be stored in four storage media–print, film, magnetic, and optical–and seen or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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InfiniBand
InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used as either a direct or switched interconnect between servers and storage systems, as well as an interconnect between storage systems. It is designed to be scalable and uses a switched fabric network topology. By 2014, it was the most commonly used interconnect in the TOP500 list of supercomputers, until about 2016. Mellanox (acquired by Nvidia) manufactures InfiniBand host bus adapters and network switches, which are used by large computer system and database vendors in their product lines. As a computer cluster interconnect, IB competes with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and Intel Omni-Path. The technology is promoted by the InfiniBand Trade Association. History InfiniBand originated in 1999 from the merger of two competing designs: F ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expansion Card
In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slot) on a computer's motherboard (see also backplane) to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most (or all) of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as a riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard. Expansion cards allow the capabilities and interfaces of a computer system to be extended or supplemented in a way appropriate to the tasks it will perform. For example, a high-speed multi-channel data acquisition system would be of no use in a personal computer used for bookkeeping, but might be a key part of a system used for ind ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peripheral Component Interconnect
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format that is independent of any given processor's native bus. Devices connected to the PCI bus appear to a bus master to be connected directly to its own bus and are assigned addresses in the processor's address space. It is a parallel bus, synchronous to a single bus clock. Attached devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard (called a ''planar device'' in the PCI specification) or an expansion card that fits into a slot. The PCI Local Bus was first implemented in IBM PC compatibles, where it displaced the combination of several slow Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots and one fast VESA Local Bus (VLB) slot as the bus configuration. It has subsequently been adopted for other computer types. Typic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Promise Ultra33
A promise is a commitment by someone to do or not do something. As a noun ''promise'' means a declaration assuring that one will or will not do something. As a verb it means to commit oneself by a promise to do or give. It can also mean a capacity for good, similar to a value that is to be realized in the near future. In the law of contract, an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim ''pacta sunt servanda''. Types There are many types of promises. There are solemn promises, such as marriage vows or military oaths and are conventions. There are legal contracts, enforceable by law. Or, there are fairy tale promises, regrettable and problematic at the time, they must be honored. And lastly, there are election promises, commitments that most people realize will later be shaped by politics and compromise. Both an oath and an affirmation can be a promise. One special kind of promise is the vow. A notable type of promise is an el ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disk Mirroring
In data storage, disk mirroring is the replication of logical disk volumes onto separate physical hard disks in real time to ensure continuous availability. It is most commonly used in RAID 1. A mirrored volume is a complete logical representation of separate volume copies. In a disaster recovery context, mirroring data over long distance is referred to as storage replication. Depending on the technologies used, replication can be performed synchronously, asynchronously, semi-synchronously, or point-in-time. Replication is enabled via microcode on the disk array controller or via server software. It is typically a proprietary solution, not compatible between various data storage device vendors. Mirroring is typically only synchronous. Synchronous writing typically achieves a recovery point objective (RPO) of zero lost data. Asynchronous replication can achieve an RPO of just a few seconds while the remaining methodologies provide an RPO of a few minutes to perhaps several hou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Business Continuance Volume
In disk arrays, a business continuance volume (BCV) is EMC Corporation's term for an independently addressable copy of a data volume, that uses advanced mirroring technique for business continuity purposes. Use BCVs can be detached from the active data storage at a point in time and mounted on non-critical servers to facilitate offline backup or parallel computing. Once offline processes are completed, these BCVs can be either: * discarded * re-attached (re-synchronized) to the production data again * used as a source to recover the production data Types There are two types of BCVs: * A clone BCV is a traditional method, and uses one-to-one separate physical storage (splitable disk mirror) ** least impact on production performance ** high cost of the additional storage ** persistent usage * A snapshot BCV, that uses copy on write Copy-on-write (COW), sometimes referred to as implicit sharing or shadowing, is a resource-management technique used in computer programming ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Snapshot (computer Storage)
In computer systems, a snapshot is the state of a system at a particular point in time. The term was coined as an analogy to that in photography. It can refer to an actual copy of the state of a system or to a capability provided by certain systems. Rationale A full backup of a large data set may take a long time to complete. On multi-tasking or multi-user systems, there may be writes to that data while it is being backed up. This prevents the backup from being atomic and introduces a version skew that may result in data corruption. For example, if a user moves a file into a directory that has already been backed up, then that file would be completely missing on the backup media, since the backup operation had already taken place before the addition of the file. Version skew may also cause corruption with files which change their size or contents underfoot while being read. One approach to safely backing up live data is to temporarily disable write access to data during t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Downtime
The term downtime is used to refer to periods when a system is unavailable. The unavailability is the proportion of a time-span that a system is unavailable or offline. This is usually a result of the system failing to function because of an unplanned event, or because of routine maintenance (a planned event). The term is commonly applied to networks and servers. The common reasons for unplanned outages are system failures (such as a crash) or communications failures (commonly known as network outage). The term is also commonly applied in industrial environments in relation to failures in industrial production equipment. Some facilities measure the downtime incurred during a work shift, or during a 12- or 24-hour period. Another common practice is to identify each downtime event as having an operational, electrical or mechanical origin. The opposite of downtime is uptime. Types Industry standards for the term "Outage Duration" or "Maintenance Duration" can have different poi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Failover
Failover is switching to a redundant or standby computer server, system, hardware component or network upon the failure or abnormal termination of the previously active application, server, system, hardware component, or network in a computer network. Failover and switchover are essentially the same operation, except that failover is automatic and usually operates without warning, while switchover requires human intervention. Systems designers usually provide failover capability in servers, systems or networks requiring near-continuous availability and a high degree of reliability. At the server level, failover automation usually uses a " heartbeat" system that connects two servers, either through using a separate cable (for example, RS-232 serial ports/cable) or a network connection. As long as a regular "pulse" or "heartbeat" continues between the main server and the second server, the second server will not bring its systems online. There may also be a third "spare parts" se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Server (computing)
In computing, a server is a piece of computer hardware or software (computer program) that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called " clients". This architecture is called the client–server model. Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients, or performing computation for a client. A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers. A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers. Client–server systems are usually most frequently implemented by (and often identified with) the request–response model: a client sends a request to the server, which performs some action and sends a response back to the client, typically with a result or acknowledg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Network-attached Storage
Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the technology and systems involved, or a specialized device built for such functionality (as unlike tangentially related technologies such as local area networks, a NAS device is often a singular unit). A NAS device is optimised for serving files either by its hardware, software, or configuration. It is often manufactured as a computer appliance a purpose-built specialized computer. NAS systems are networked appliances that contain one or more storage drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID. Network-attached storage typically provide access to files using network file sharing protocols such as NFS, SMB, or AFP. From the mid-1990s, NAS devices began gaining popularity as a convenient method of sharing files a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |