20 to 30 Times Faster Access
The WildFire processor can be utilized to create CD-ROM servers which provide the ultimate level of performance in networked CD-ROM storage. WildFire systems deliver 20 to 30 times faster access to CD-ROM based information, with transfer rates up to 67X, or 10MB/sec, and access times under 10ms.

Customers demands can be met
High performance is essential to supporting multiple userrequests to the same CD. It is also required by multimedia users who need guaranteed, consistent throughput for full-motion video and graphics-intensive files. WildFire systems deliver CD-ROM data at hard disk speed, taking full advantage of today's powerful file servers.

Data flow Diagram

How It Works The on-board dedicated caching computer in WildFire sits between the host computer and the CD-ROM drives in the server. The CD-ROM drives are split between two "device side" SCSI channels while the host computer is connected via a third, "host side" SCSI channel. The CD-ROM drives are transparently translated by WildFire caching engine to appear as eight different logical units, or LUN's. Since LUNs are a standard part of the SCSI specification, WildFire achieves maximum compatibility with a vast majority of operating systems, host adapters, and CD-ROM drivers. When requests come from the host computer for one of the CD-ROM drives, the caching engine knows which "device side" SCSI bus to route the data through, and the data is read from the CD-ROM drive and sent to the host as indicated by the green and orange arrows. Two hard drives are also connected to the cache engine - one on each of the device-side SCSI busses. During periods of inactivity to the CD-ROM server, the caching engine pulls data from the CD-ROM drives on one device side channel, while simultaneously writing it to the hard drive on the opposite device-side channel. This is shown with the blue and red arrows. This system, called "cross-caching," allows WildFire to achieve maximum performance, caching the discs in a minimum of time. Since this caching is handled by WildFire's embedded caching computer and the data is transferred only through its own internal SCSI channels, the host computer is virtually unaware of this process - resulting in no performance degradation on the host computer. This is very different from conventional hard disk caching systems which require tremendous host CPU resources to build and maintain the caches, diverting resource from not only CD-ROM access, but other file server activities.

When data is requested from the host CPU, the caching engine determines if the requested data has previously been preloaded into one of the cache hard drives. If this situation occurs, called a "cache hit", the data is not read from the CD-ROM drive, but is rather requested from the cache hard drive. (Shown with pink and yellow arrows.) Since hard drives can seek and transfer much faster than a CD-ROM drive, these accesses are many times faster - thus yielding the great performance improvements of WildFire.

A Customizable System
WildFire is unique among OEM equipment. It is the platform for an integrated system of components that can be customized around your needs. Customize your hardware design with an optional alphanumeric display, and control keypad for setting SCSI IDs and termination. You can even connect multiple WildFire processors together and control them from a single keypad. Add OAI's SafeSwapTM to enable end users to replace drive mechanisms on the fly. From connections for LEDs to switchable active termination to custom firmware and hardware, WildFire's versatility allows us to customize its behavior to meet even the most diverse customer OEM requirements.

Features of Wildfire

	20 - 30 times faster access to information		Throughput of up to 10MB/sec
	Seek time of approximately 10ms		Automated background caching
	Supports 1 or 2 Hard Drives for caching		Up to 56 SCSI devices per host bus
	Host OS independent		Host hardware independent
	Supports virtually all host adapters		Supports safe swapping of active drives
	Transparent to host		Selectable Active Termination
	Selectable Termination power for each bus		Mounts in standard 3.5" or 5.25" drive bays
	Supports multiple block sizes		Supports SCSI disconnect/reconnect
	RS-232 serial port		Firmware flash-upgradeable EEP ROM
	LEDs and alpha-numeric displays support