No envy for NVMe: Hardened newbie talks to the Reg An array without limits sounds a great idea and the ADS 1000 is built by a startup whose name, Apeiron, is Greek for without limits. Its ADS1000 uses hardened Ethernet to have array network access latency cut to <3 µS for a round trip. That’s fast. Fast_Ethernet_speeds_ADoption_650 Fast Ethernet with no stack obstruction is …
This piece would be better if it explained what on earth "hardened Ethernet" might be. A search for the phrase just turns up switches that one can install in one's cement works. And diving a couple of levels deep through links in the article leads only to a white paper that uses the phrase once without explanation.
This is not just made up techno babble. Apeiron took the Layer-2 Enet protocol and added some of the features typically found in layer-3 or above, the loss-less characteristics needed for storage connectivity. Features such as re-transmission of packets, packet re-ordering, flow control (back-pressure) and the full data path is integrated in to the hardware vs. the software. This is where the term "hardened" comes from. The connectivity between the server and the integrated storage network has all HA qualities of Layer-3 and above without the latency. This is where a lot of the Apeiron IP is: Apeiron is simply moving the PCIe TLP's via a hardened layer-2 tunnel to the integrated switching.
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