Qlogic’s Mt. Rainier connects multiple server-based SSDs into what amounts to a virtual SAN, freeing them from single-application dominance to provide very high-speed, aggregated storage capacity across the data center, says Ryan Klein, senior director at the Fibre Channel and Ethernet switch, adapter, and chip provider. He and Cameron Brett, QLogic’s director of solutions marketing, spoke with Wikibon’s David Vellante and SiliconAngle’s John Furrier in the Cube from Oracle OpenWorld 2012.

Server-based SSD cards move data closer to individual applications and provide order-of-magnitude faster reads and writes than spinning disk. But the card is tied to the specific server and whatever application runs on that server, creating an inflexible arrangement that lacks adaptability, particularly in virtualized server environments where applications are moved from server to server based on changing demands.

Mt. Rainier, written up in detail by Wikibon Networking Analyst Stuart Miniman in a recent Professional Alert, frees SSDs from the restrictions inherent in this architecture, Brett and Klein said, connecting SSDs in multiple servers in an independent network. Making them available across the data center. This provides the best of both worlds – the availability of an independent SAN with the proximity of server-connected storage and the full speed advantage of solid-state storage. SSDs in physical SANs, in contrast, are available across the data center but only through the SAN software stack, which is specifically written to slow data transfers to the much slower speed of spinning disk.

Qlogic, which hosted the Cube at Oracle OpenWorld, has a strong, long-term relationship with Oracle, Brett said. Its role in the Oracle ecosystem is to improve performance across SANs and LANs. This relationship has become more important with Oracle’s Sun Microsystems acquisition. “With the database and applications being vertically integrated, it makes sense to tailor the hardware to the software stack.” Network speed is particularly important when working with the large databases typical of Oracle installations, and these needs will only increase with the addition of server-based SSDs and Big Data, which involves transfers of very large files across LANs.

“Flash has been trying to find its place in the storage network,” Brett said. It has been installed directly on servers, on traditional SANs, and in other places in the ecosystem, but “the flash is not optimal in any of those places. Mt. Rainier provides the best of several different worlds. It marries the SSDs with various Qlogic technologies – such as fibre channel and 10G Ethernet switches – into a single solution.”