You like Flash, you like cache: Put ‘em together to form …
Wasting no time in following the trend, Fusion-io has integrated recently-acquired ioTurbine flash caching software with its hardware to create ... ioCache.
Fusion bought IO Turbine in August and its ESXi plug-in software looks after a cache for virtual machines in a VMware server. Now Fusion has bundled a 600GB flash memory card with ioTurbine software.
Fusion's Virtual Software Layer (VSL) virtualises the company's flash cards into a single pool of storage. The ioTurbine software uses an O/S subsystem in VSL as a store to "house and serve data for each VM". The firm says: "Integration of VSL's host-based flash management and ioTurbine's cache management eliminates otherwise redundant mapping functions, maximising I/O performance."
Fusion reckons a physical server can run more VMs as a result. It says the concept can even increase write I/O capabilities because networked storage arrays are less busy with read I/Os, the data being in server-located flash cache, and so have more write I/O capacity. That's a neat claim but not one that the disk drive-based storage array vendors will be enthusiastic about.
PCIe flash card entrant STEC introduced caching software with its Kronos PCIe flash cards in August and this is a generalised caching software product, not a VMware-integrated one like ioTurbine.
Fusion's ioCache bundle will be available in the fourth quarter for a suggested list price of $6,900 per physical server. Customers can use an ioDrive flash card if they need more than 600GB capacity. The ioTurbine software is available on its own for a $3,900 licence cost per physical server. You can't buy the ioCache flash card on its own.
(Source: theregister.co.uk)
