14 DAY TRIAL // Fusion-io has added a new product to its lineup of enterprise solid-state technology and high-performance I/O solutions, namely the ioSAN, a networked enterprise solid state drive (SSD), the world's first. The new Fusion-io device can extend the raw power of the SSD over the network. It can be used as networked, server-attached storage or integrated into networked storage infrastructure, making fundamental changes to the enterprise storage area. The company also launched an invitation to industry players into joining its developers' program to learn how to best benefit from the solution in the process of designing future applications around this standard in storage performance.
The ioSAN is a device that features a combination of ioMemory and Converged Enhanced Networking. The new device uses the PCI-Express (PCIe) form factor and works as a network-attached storage, sustaining the communication of server-attached storage between systems. Fusion-io enables users to create full-power storage area networks (SAN) featuring terabytes of low-cost layered storage, high-performance enterprise flash and high-performance enterprise networking. Users can even deploy building systems capable of millions of IOPS and tens of gigabytes of sustained bandwidth, with less than one millisecond latency.
ioSAN uses a standard-based, memory-speed protocol over either 10GigE or 40GBps QDR Infiniband and shares ioMemory between servers. The latency of the device is situated under the two-microsecond line. The new product is able to dynamically alternate between 10Gb/s Ethernet or 40Gb/s quad data rate InfiniBand, due to its integrated network interface. This feature also allows it to create networked storage across servers and to have leveraged performance and flexibility, all with no footprint at all. The networked storage can be integrated with great ease into already existing server infrastructure.
The improvements that ioSAN offers through the combination of networked and multi-layered storage is beneficial for applications like financial services and Web services or media editing, which require quick access to data, as well as for more traditional, storage-related applications like replication, mirroring, ILM, failover and backup/restoration.
“With this development, everything you thought you knew about SSD and storage networking is no longer true,” said David Flynn, CTO of Fusion-io. “The ioSAN fuses SSD with storage networking, combining the best of direct-attached and storage networking with the best of SSD and traditional storage. With this revolutionary advancement, Fusion-io has commoditized high-performance network storage in the same way that companies like NVIDIA and ATI commoditized high-performance graphics processing. Fantastic applications of this technology are now beginning to emerge.”
“We’re delighted to have Fusion-io return to DEMO again this year,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO. “Fusion-io’s NAND flash technologies represent the most imaginative solutions to the problems contemporary data-centers face in terms of performance, power consumption and upkeep costs.”