Composable Infrastructure direct-connects compute and storage resources dynamically, using virtualized networking techniques controlled by software. Instead of physically constructing a server with specific internal devices (typically storage or NICs), or cabling the appropriate device chassis to a server, composable enables the virtual connection of these resources at the device level as needed, when needed.
Not bound by a fixed ratio of CPUs to storage or networking, etc., these products can assemble or “compose” bare-metal compute systems with the desired hardware configuration, essentially at run time. And, they can “disassemble” it when no longer needed, returning those resources to a common pool. Some solutions also support GPUs and/or FPGAs.
Western Digital is participating in the composable infrastructure market with storage devices that have been designed around industry standard APIs making them simpler to integrate into a composable system. Companies interested in using Western Digital OpenFlex* technology would need to buy a composable solution from a vendor offering composing software that supports Western Digital hardware (see Usage and Deployment).
OpenFlex Fabric Devices
The F3200 Fabric Device is a removable blade-like form-factor (similar to 3.5″) storage module with up to 61TB of NVMe flash capacity. This implementation of NVMe-over-Fabrics (NVM-oF) uses Ethernet, with each F3200 supporting two QSFP28 50Gb/s ports. A single OpenFlex F3200 device provides up to 2.2M IOPS and 11.7GB per second throughput, with latency of less than 40 microseconds.
Western Digital OpenFlex Product Brief Includes:
- Overview
- Highlights
- Usage and Deployment
- Evaluator Group’s Opinion
Download the Product Brief Now!
