Embedded Storage Solutions

Butterflyvista can help with your storage solution needs. Having worked continuously for 2.5 years with SAS/SATA technology, both 3G and 6G, on various storage solution products, we are well positioned to help solve your needs. Butterflyvista worked closely with Maxim, ATTO technologies, and LSI products.

Take our effort with JMR Electronics, maker of the BlueStor and SilverStor products. When Butterflyvista took over the 3G versions of both lines, the products were riddled with bugs and their customers were very unhappy. They did not have complete source code and only some of the units were even shippable. That is with many years in development.

Working closely with their electrical engineer, we debugged and created a source controlled version of their software for the BlueStor 8 Bay. We then created one source base that supported all their lines. Today, having upgraded their product lines to SAS/SATA 6G using the Maxim max782018C expander, their product lines receive compliments at trade shows and virtually no complaints from customers.

The source base on that project builds under Visual Studio with the source control being Team Foundation Server, which Butterflyvista set up. The relevant environment for this project includes:

• GNU C/C++, C#.Net, Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, TFS (Team Foundation Server)
• ThreadX
• SQLite, MySQL, ADO.Net
• SAS/SATA
• Win32 SDK
• Inno Setup, InstallShield
• Microsoft Office

Here are some of the highlights of our storage solution experience.

• Completed and debugged SAS/SATA 3G firmware for BlueStor 8 bay.
• Created a single source solution for other storage product lines: BlueStor 8/16 and SilverStor 8/10/18 storage units.
• Worked with Vitesse VSC7153 expander (which uses a V3000 RISC MIPS-based processor) and debugged a home spun OS.
• Wrote SAS/SATA 6G firmware for storage product lines.
• Worked with Maxim MAX72018C SAS/SATA 6G expander (which uses a MIPS 4KEc processor) utilizing ThreadX OS.
• Worked extensively with the SerialTek BusXpert Pro 3G/6G SAS Analyzer for debugging the expanders.
• Worked extensively with ATTO and LSI SAS/SATA RAID adapters.
• Worked directly with ATTO Technologies to debug their adapters.
• Wrote software for use out on the production line to stamp the unique information for each board. Software utilized client/server architecture, was written in C#.Net, and used both SQLite. The admin console featured email alerts, reports, and customizability.
• Helped the MIS person on and off with activities.
• Extensive release documentation and worked with document control.
• Used Microsoft TFS and Bug Tracker for source control and bug tracking respectively.
• All software at JMR utilized and built using Visual Studio.
• Wrote a small application for Apple.
• Got JMR´s products working with Ubuntu Linux.
• Worked with Thunderbolt technology.