March 16, 2012 -- System administrators are finding that conventional storage architectures, which rely heavily on hard disk media, lack the performance to meet the demands of today's workloads. Application architects are responding by adopting a holistic approach to memory architecture that combines conventional storage media with a new entrant in the enterprise space; Flash memory.

Long a preferred memory medium for consumer devices, NAND Flash memory offers 10 to 100X performance improvement over that of hard disk drives (HDDs) for enterprise applications. Flash is also the most cost-effective non-volatile storage medium for frequently used data and applications. By using Flash memory arrays, enterprises can dramatically reduce storage footprint, CPU and software licenses, and consequently, data center power, space and operation cost.

At the core of this new high-performance memory subsystem is a PLD-based programmable state machine (PSM). The PSM supports RAID algorithms (essential to ensure data integrity), memory control and high-speed I/O functionality. Programmable logic devices are particularly advantageous for these state machines owing to their inherent design flexibility, embedded processors, hardened memory controllers and high-speed serial I/O blocks. A Flash memory architecture supported by a PLD-based PSM uniquely enables data center administrators to respond to the growing demands on their storage resources by balancing performance needs with data integrity, system scalability and serviceability.

By David McIntyre. (McIntyre manages the Computer and Storage Business Unit at Altera Corp.)