Nutanix Teamed Up With Fusion-io

Nutanix, Inc. teamed up with Fusion, Inc. to demonstrate linear performance scalability for its Complete Cluster solution in a 50-node benchmark leveraging Fusion ioMemory.

The benchmark validates Nutanix’s suitability and performance predictability in demanding virtualization deployments, and gives insight into the ongoing operational cost savings associated with Nutanix’s SAN-busting clustered architecture.

Prior to the Nutanix solution being available, customers have had to re-architect and overprovision SAN storage to meet the I/O requirements of virtualization workload, costing time, money and physical datacenter space. With Nutanix Complete Cluster and features including Heat Optimizing Tiering that leverage Fusion ioDrives, these businesses are able to deliver the I/O performance that their applications demand while saving money.

"The innovative use of Fusion ioMemory in Nutanix’s converged compute and storage architecture maximizes performance for demanding virtualization use cases," said Will Hall, Fusion-io VP of OEM Sales. "This benchmark test shows that performance scales linearly, saving capital and time for enterprise organizations as they grow their deployments. Fusion-io is proud to be working with Nutanix on this new approach to harnessing the power of ioMemory technology for customers’ enterprise virtualization needs."

With a Fusion-io 320GB ioDrive on each node, this 50-node configuration of the Nutanix Complete Cluster demonstrated 375,000 random write IOPS and 224Gbps of sequential read bandwidth, as measured by the Iometer performance test tool. A single Nutanix Complete Block of four nodes demonstrated 25,000 random write IOPS and 16 Gbps, with a total of 12.5 blocks fitting into 3/5th of a single datacenter rack, illustrating a 2-5X datacenter footprint savings over traditional server and network storage solutions.

"Injecting flash storage into a traditional SAN is extremely expensive and ineffective in practice because performance is severely throttled by the data having to traverse layers of network switches and storage controllers," explains Mohit Aron, CTO of Nutanix. "The Nutanix approach is to instead use the server-attached Fusion ioDrive at the point of compute in our converged building block to unlock the full performance potential of flash. Combined with our cluster software, the Nutanix architecture enables virtualization capabilities like VMware’s high availability and vMotion to deliver this high-performance while still meeting enterprise-class virtualization needs."

Each Nutanix Complete Block is a 2U unit that contains 4 nodes, with each node containing 2 six-core Intel Xeon processors and 48GB RAM (upgradeable to 192GB) for running virtual machines, and a 320GB Fusion ioDrive, 300GB SATA SSD and 5TB of SATA drives for storing the virtual machines.

Customers can add single nodes or a block of four nodes to grow their deployments as their needs grow, knowing that each compact block delivers the right combination of compute, storage and networking for predictable performance scale-out.

With 40-60% CAPEX savings over traditional server and network storage offerings, the converged compute and storage approach in the Nutanix solution offers grow-as-you-go with its modular Nutanix Complete Block, but also price-performance as customers scale from small to large deployments.

Nutanix Complete Cluster is available through the company’s certified solution partners. U.S. list price for Nutanix Complete Cluster starts at $75,000.