SASTracer/Trainer

The LeCroy SASTracer/Trainer is an integrated protocol analyzer and exerciser platform that provides fast, efficient and accurate debug, test and verification of Serial-Attached SCSI semiconductors, devices, and systems. It allows designers and validation engineers to quickly and easily transmit valid and invalid 1.5 or 3Gbps SAS or SATA traffic, selectively record the exchange and display the results using the CATC Trace Analysis software. The SASTrainer exerciser offers both initiator and target side emulation modes, allowing this all-in-one test platform to play an important role at every phase of the SAS and SATA product development process.

As with all LeCroy protocol analyzers, hardware based pre-capture filtering is supported for efficient memory management. It includes full SATA-II analysis if you are interested in using SASTracer to test Serial ATA environments (1.5 or 3 Gbps); plus full decoding of STP traffic when SATA devices are used with SAS Expander environments.

• Integrated Analyzer and Generator System - All-in-one platform transmits, records, and analyzes SAS and SATA protocols
• Available with One, Two or Four 1.5 or 3.0 Gbps SAS analysis ports - Monitor, trigger and record up to 4 Serial Attached SCSI links simultaneously
• Complete Serial ATA Recording and Analysis at 1.5 or 3.0 Gbps - The SASTracer system is designed to be plug-and-play compatible with Serial ATA II
• Sophisticated Triggering - Isolate areas of interest with real-time hardware triggering
• Hardware Filtering - Extend capture window by removing non-essential primitives from the recording
• Link Tracker Display - Chronologically display all DWORDs on all channels synchronized to a common clock
• Frame Tracker Display - Summary view shows transport level events in a time synchronized table format
• 4-Wide SAS Analyzer Option - Add a second plug-in module for monitoring 4-Wide links with a single UPAS 10K system
• Long Term (Spooled) Recording - Helps capture intermittent and latent issues when trigger conditions are hard to predict
• Cascade Multiple Analyzers - By cascading up to 4 analyzers, time correlated traces for up to 16 channels can be recorded
• Remote Access over LAN - One or more SASTracer analyzers can be controlled over the network
• Exerciser offers Initiator and Target Emulation -Flexible platform for testing Initiator and end-device behavior
• Exerciser supports automatic "handshaking" for many SAS and SATA primitives and state changes - Simplifies script development and allows more comprehensive testing of device behavior
• Exerciser automatically responds to incoming OOB and speed negotiation - Automatically bring SAS device under test through power up / reset sequence
• Unlimited IF-THEN-ELSE branching within a script - Allows Exerciser to conditionally respond to inbound frames or data patterns
• Traffic Summaries - Statistical reports provide high level abstraction of events, operations, errors and throughput for each I_T_L Nexus
• Collapsible / Expandable Headers - Easy "drill-down" on field structures for individual Frames, Commands and Tasks
• Automatic Decoding at Transport Layer, SCSI STP, and SMP Transactions - View high-level Serial Attached SCSI protocol events
• Field Upgradeable BusEngine Technology - Easily upgrade firmware to support new features
• Dynamically Allocated Memory Pool (2 GB) - Capture long recording sessions for analysis and problem solving
• Modular design is easily expanded - Purchase additional plug-ins to support Fibre Channel, PCI Express or InfiniBand
• SAS-Auditor™ post processing suite - Optional software can automatically perform architectural compliance assessment on the contents of a trace file

The CATC Trace™ is a powerful and intuitive software system embedding detailed knowledge of the protocol hierarchy and intricacies, as defined in the protocol specification. The CATC Trace utilizes a graphical display that has been optimized for fast and easy navigation through a captured traffic session. You are alerted as violations are detected at all levels of the protocol layering and can easily drill-down on areas of interest or collapse and hide fields that are not relevant.

The CATC Trace software will logically group, at the Application layer, all frames and transactions that are part of a common operation. Essential for debugging wide port traffic, SASTracer can assemble SCSI queued operations if they are spread across multiple physical pathways.

LeCroy pioneered the "scatter-gather" approach to showing high level events but SASTracer also provides exceptional "drill down" to byte level detail including raw 8b10b symbols. The Link Tracker display allows you to see DWORD level data streams in a table view. It uses a common reference clock to time synchronize traffic moving upstream and downstream on a full-duplex SAS link. It can display Packet fields, 10B HEX, Scrambled or unscrambled DWORDs. For SASTracer systems equipped with multiple channels, it displays additional columns showing DWORD traffic chronologically across all links. This level of detail is critical to debugging full duplex SAS traffic because it provides precise timing context for analyzing SAS state transitions. Frame Tracker moves one level higher by summarizing and displaying transport level events in a similar table format. Together, these two displays preserve the physical orientation of the recorded data which makes it easier to visualize what's occurring on multiple SAS links.

SASTracer Link Tracker shows OPEN ADDRESS frame as it propagates down the SAS topology until the device responds with OPEN_ACCEPT. Link Tracker can be linked to the main trace display or maximized on screen (as shown above).

Frame Tracker provides a condensed view of frame level events on each channel and can be synchronized with the Link Tracker display

LeCroy brings 10 years of analysis expertise to the Serial Attached SCSI developer community with a family of new plug-in modules for SAS protocol verification. The SASTracer and SASTrainer are separate hardware plug-in modules designed specifically for LeCroy CATC Protocol Analyzer System (CATC 10K Platform). The CATC 10K is LeCroy's high-speed serial data analyzer platform and is the first system in the industry to support SAS "Wide" links.

The SASTracer and Trainer modules can be used selectively for analysis only, for traffic generation only, or perform both analysis and traffic generation at the same time. When configured with the SASTrainer option, the system can transmit a single link of 1.5 or 3Gbps traffic while providing 1 or 2 recording channels. The two link SASTracer is a popular choice for monitoring traffic moving in and out of an expander or between a dual ported SAS drive. The two link system is easily upgraded in the field to support 4-wide analysis by replacing the Exerciser module with a second 2 port analyzer plugin.

The heart of the UPAS platform is the revolutionary LeCroy BusEngine™. This state-of-the-art, field-upgradeable, technology core incorporates a real-time non-intrusive recording engine and configurable tools to trigger and filter SAS traffic. It can selectively monitor traffic on specific channels or with unique SAS addresses. It can start recording when event counters or timers exceed specified thresholds and it's the only system that can perform long term recording by "spooling" captured data to local disk storage.

The LeCroy protocol analyzer platform not only supports today's technologies, but also the technologies of the future. With plug-in modules available for Fibre Channel, SATA-II, InfiniBand 4X and PCI-Express, the analyzer system can address the most important protocols on the computing horizon.

The CATC platform also allows you to combine standalone analyzers together to capture high speed traffic across the same or different communication protocols. For example, SAS, SATA and Fibre Channel analyzers can be cascaded together to cross-trigger, capture and display traffic from multiple heterogeneous protocols. Ideal for validation of multi-protocol bridge components, traffic from multiple analyzers can be displayed synchronized to a common clock and with full search and reporting capabilities.

SASTrainer utilizes standard Serial ATA cables and can be programmed to transmit valid and invalid SAS or SATA traffic. You can create bit stream files by exporting either host or device side transmissions from previously recorded SAS traffic files (.SAS) to the generator file format. This allows validation engineers to easily recreate problems reported in the field using a trace file. Anything you can record with the SASTracer analyzer can be edited and then played back as a test pattern using the SASTrainer exerciser.

SASTrainer also offers a text-based API for creating scripts from the ground up. This mode is ideal for performing corner-case, stress and limit testing. It can also be used to validate protocol compliance and fault handling by injecting code violations, CRC, scrambling and protocol errors, or customized data payloads.

SAS and SATA "handshaking" are global settings that allow the SASTrainer to automatically reply to out-of-band and speed negotiation signals When enabled in a script, they allow the SASTrainer to independently respond to events like open requests, and acknowledge frames. The Exerciser supports unlimited levels of IF-THEN-ELSE logic which can be added to a script and allow the exerciser to conditionally respond to inbound frames or data patterns. This expands the range of tests that can be completed with SASTrainer by enabling longer exchanges with larger test configurations.

Tooltips explain the meaning of SAS of traffic within the context of the recorded data

For efficient development of SAS protocol, an analyzer has to let you extract useful information from a crowded stream of traffic, and accurately identify and selectively record what interests you most. SASTracer provides real-time hardware triggering on the critical components of Serial Attached SCSI including out-of-band signals, SCSI operations, and primitives.

The SASTracer Analyzer features LeCroy's BusEngine™ core. This real time recording engine can intelligently monitor up to 4 fully loaded SAS links. It discards idles and packs redundant symbols to save recording memory and can filter out ALIGN, R_RDY primitves or SSP frame types. SASTracer can cooperatively trigger across multiple channels. Popup menus allow easy triggering on a specific I_T_L Nexus, hashed addresses, or connection tags. It also supports triggering on common SCSI IU and status fields including Check Condition, Busy, Reservation Conflict and Abort Task.

With 256 levels of trigger logic and up to six trigger states per level SASTracer is particularly effective at trapping intermittent problems that only occur during overnight testing. The triggering and filtering options are channel independent and can record different fields based on the traffic detected on the individual links.

You can configure the depth of the recording memory up to 2Gbytes and determine where in the recording the trigger is located. Filtering strategies can significantly extend the recording memory and with "spool-to-disk" recording, the system can actually capture time stamped trace data for I/O operations that occur over several hours or even days. When using spooled recording, SASTracer allows you to selectively view portions of the captured data in segments. Intended for tracking errors or events that occur infrequently, spooling provides unprecedented flexibility for capturing real problems. Full complements of bus usage graphs are also available which makes spooled recording useful for characterizing performance over an extended period.

Using SASTracer Software to analyze trace data makes it easy to identify problems and explain behavior. The CATC Trace display system trains your eye to understand more information faster. Colors and graphics are used to represent trace elements in the context of the SAS protocol. The intuitive use of collapsible headers provide unprecedented drill-down for individual transactions, data payloads, and frames.

SASTracer automatically decodes SSP and SMP events as well as SCSI operations and tasks. SASTracer also decodes STP traffic moving between SAS Expanders and SAS initiators. It also provides full support for Serial ATA analysis by showing primitives, FIS and decoded ATA level traffic moving between Serial ATA targets and STP bridge devices.

User defined scripts can be used for custom decoding of vendor specific SCSI commands. The CATC Trace significantly reduces the learning curve for those new to the SAS protocol with tooltips that actually explain the specification in context of the recorded traffic.

For systems configured with multiple ports, traffic is interleaved and synchronized by time-stamp. At the higher level, data is restructured to show the logical relationship between SSP initiators and targets. By illustrating the protocol hierarchy this way, SASTracer makes it easier to ensure participating devices behave correctly at the protocol level.

Decodes SSP, STP, SATA and SMP events with easy drill down to DWORD level detail

The CATC Trace uses collapsible headers to logically group all frames and transactions that are part of single SCSI operation

Traffic Summaries provide statistics on the occurrence of errors, primitives, frames, SCSI operations and other protocol events within the trace. You can evaluate these metrics at a glance or use them to navigate through the recording. For example, by choosing SSP frame type within the Traffic Summary, such as Response, you can automatically jump through each occurrence of that frame within the trace. The traffic summary can be printed, saved to text or emailed with a single keystroke.

SASTracer also features graphical bus utilization and throughput reports, which provide a histogram of activity dynamically linked to frame level details. These graphical reports including SCSI Latency Time and Pending for SAS and SATA I/Os provide a snapshot of bus efficiency. A single click within the bus utilization charts navigates to that point in the trace.

The perfect combination of power and portability, SASTracer meets airline carry-on regulations and adapts to any lab environment. The SASTrainer exerciser option combined with LeCroy's protocol analysis makes this the only "all-in-one" tool for SAS and SATA test and validation.

SASTracer provides valuable traffic summaries of all viewable elements