V2 solutions embrace the best storage technologies available. Some of the most recent technologies utilised by V2 are outlined below.

Infiniband
InfiniBand is a point-to-point high-speed switch fabric interconnect architecture that features built-in quality of service, fault tolerance and scalability. The InfiniBand Architecture (IBA) Specification defines the interconnect (fabric) technology for interconnecting processor nodes and I/O nodes to form a system area network that is independent of the host operating system and processor platform.

InfiniBand uses a bidirectional serial bus so that it can avoid the signal skew problems of parallel buses when communicating over relatively long distances. It is very fast, with 2.5Gb/s links in each direction per connection. InfiniBand also supports double and quad data rates for 5Gb/s or 10Gb/s respectively. Links use 8B/10B encoding so every 10 bits sent carry 8 bits of data, such that the actual data rate is 4/5ths the raw rate. Thus the single, double and quad data rates carry 2, 4 or 8Gb/s respectively.

Links can be aggregated in units of 4 or 12, called 4X or 12X. A quad-rate 12X link therefore carries 120Gb/s raw, or 96Gb/s of user data. Most systems today use a 4X single data rate connection, though the first double-data-rate products are already entering the market. Larger systems with 12x links are typically used for various cluster and supercomputer interconnects and for inter-switch connections.

SAS
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is the logical evolution of SCSI that satisfies enterprise requirements for scalability, performance, reliability and manageability, while leveraging a common electrical and physical interface with Serial ATA (SATA). This compatibility provides users with unprecedented choices for server and storage subsystem deployment.

Key benefits include enterprise class robustness, investment protection in compatible SCSI software and middleware and the choice of direct-attach storage devices (SAS or SATA) in a single SAS system. In addition, longer cabling distances, smaller form factors and greater addressability will lead to a new level of flexibility when deploying mainstream data-center servers and subsystems.

WAFS
Wide Area File Services (WAFS) is a storage technology that makes it possible to access a remote data centre as though it were local.

Remote office users can access and share files globally at LAN speeds over the WAN. Distributed enterprises that deploy WAFS solutions are able to consolidate storage to corporate data centres, eliminating the need to backup and manage data that previously resided in their remote offices. The primary benefit to remote office users is unrestricted and lightning fast access to data, while distributed enterprises are assured that data is safe and secure.

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