NetApp's PAM

NetApp introduced a new feature called PAM - Performance Acceleration Module.

"In the simplest terms, the Performance Acceleration Module is a second-layer cache: a cache used to hold blocks evicted from the WAFL® buffer cache. (WAFL is the NetApp® Write Anywhere File Layout, which defines how NetApp lays out data on disk. The WAFL buffer cache is a read cache maintained by WAFL in system memory.) In a system without PAM, any attempt to read data that is not in system memory results in a disk read. With PAM, the storage system first checks to see whether a requested read has been cached in one of its installed modules before issuing a disk read. Data ONTAP® maintains a set of cache tags in system memory and can determine whether or not a block resides in PAM without accessing the card. This reduces access latency because only one DMA operation is required on a cache hit."

It all sounds very good and is very, very similar to L2ARC feature in ZFS, except that it seems like NetApp only supports very expensive PCI/DRAM cards with relatively small capacity. With ZFS L2ARC not only you can get such functionality for free, but it is also more flexible and allows you to use any block device in a system as L2ARC - so you can provide hundreds of GBs of cache for a fraction of cost of NetApp's cards. And ZFS is open sourced :)