Switched direct attached shared storage architecture

A switched direct attached shared data storage system comprising:

• a plurality of compute nodes, each compute node having integrated compute capabilities, data storage, and a network interface controller (Host NIC), the plurality of compute nodes being in data communication with each other via a local area network, the plurality of compute nodes each including distributed storage processing software resident thereon;
• a plurality of physical data storage devices in data communication with a storage controller;
• and
• a data store switch fabric enabling data communications between the plurality of compute nodes and the plurality of physical data storage devices via the Host NIC and the storage controller, the data store switch fabric encapsulating data requests from the plurality of compute nodes into Ethernet frames for transport to corresponding physical data storage devices, the encapsulated data requests including information formatted in a native NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) storage protocol compatible with the corresponding physical data storage devices, wherein the data store switch fabric presents an Ethernet MAC (Media Access Control) table based virtual to physical remapping layer enabling the plurality of compute nodes to access the plurality of physical data storage devices in a virtual manner, the Host NIC presenting a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) endpoint to a corresponding compute node and the storage controller, which provides a root complex to a group of NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) solid-state drives.