NextIO Achieves 2.2 Million IO/s

NextIO, provider of I/O consolidation solutions, and Fusion-io, in new memory tier of flash-based solid-state (ioMemory) technology, have broken the record for IOPS performance in a single rack-mount flash array.

A single NextIO vSTOR Application Acceleration Appliance populated with six ioDrive Duo ioMemory cards and two SuperMicro servers equipped with Six-Core AMD Opteron processors reached performance levels of 2.2M read input/output operations per second (IOPS), besting the previous single-box flash performance record of 1.7M IOPs.

NextIO vSTOR Application Acceleration Appliance

vSTOR’s innovative implementation makes multiple high-performance PCI-Express connections available to servers, each of which provides significantly higher host connection bandwidth than flash arrays using Fibre Channel or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) host interfaces. Its ability to use widely available, industry-standard flash media ensures best-of-breed performance and features, while eliminating the proprietary media lock-in that characterizes other competing flash arrays.

To help NextIO meet this goal, they have entered into an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Fusion-io. The agreement supports a new Fusion-io initiative to make the incredible performance capabilities associated with its ioMemory technology available to a wide variety of vertical markets. By adding Fusion-io to the NextIO platform, NextIO will be able to create a solution that provides customers with seven terabytes of high-performance flash in a 3U/300W appliance, and does so at a lower price per gigabyte (GB) and watts per GB than any other similarly performing flash array on the market today, with improvements that will continue to lead the industry.

“Fusion-io is excited to work with NextIO in the creation of their new vSTOR platform, which is setting new records for performance and adaptability,” said Jim Dawson, Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Fusion-io. “By incorporating Fusion’s ioMemory technology into the vSTOR platform, NextIO will be able to offer customers the ability to extend their capacity and performance beyond the limitations of their server.”
 
NextIO’s vSTOR Adaptive Application Accelerator represents a paradigm shift in the functionality and design of solid-state arrays, at a lower price/performance point. By utilizing NextIO’s vConnect I/O virtualization switching technology, vSTOR can reallocate flash on the fly between servers, eliminating the need to overprovision Tier 0 storage. This capability also reduces the overall cost of the flash by allowing the resource to be shared by multiple servers and applications, something existing solid-state arrays or dedicated flash resources cannot duplicate. The technology promises to speed up a variety of applications such as Microsoft Exchange, relational databases, Massive Multiplayer Game hosting platforms, video editing, and content delivery applications while simultaneously being more cost effective.
 
“The OEM relationship with Fusion-io gives our NextIO vSTOR platform industry-leading performance density, and represents a significant expansion in the number of media providers for our product,” said Mike Heumann, VP of Marketing, NextIO. “Fusion-io also brings a significant market leadership and customer base to this relationship, which NextIO hopes to leverage with our vSTOR product.”