Fusion-io and Princeton University Scientists Team Up

Fusion-io, Inc. has
collaborated with Princeton University
computer scientists to design a new subsystem called Extended Memory, available
exclusively for Fusion ioMemory as part of the Fusion-io Software Development
Kit (SDK).

The Extended Memory subsystem extends system memory
from DRAM onto flash, providing much more performance memory
capacity than currently possible with DRAM alone. It simplifies
complexity for application developers and extends cost savings to customers who
can boost performance with applications customized to leverage ioMemory.

"DRAM is not only a costly resource
in modern computing, but the capacity DRAM offers is also extremely limited.
Extended Memory offers a cost-effective alternative to large DRAM installments
by allowing applications to extend their in-memory data from DRAM onto
ioMemory," said Vivek Pai, associate professor of Computer Science at
Princeton. "Princeton’s academic
research and design is focused on developing significant advancements in
computer architecture, and it’s exciting to collaborate with leaders like
Fusion-io to bring these innovations to market to help power better performance
and efficiency for companies around the world."

Many enterprises are attracted to the benefits of storing all data in-memory,
especially to meet the needs of webscale, cloud and big data computing, but
DRAM is cost-prohibitive, not persistent, and limited in capacity. The Extended
Memory feature intelligently tiers data between available DRAM in the system
and the persistent NAND flash tier, making it more affordable for organizations
to expand the size of their in-memory data sets with a software-driven
solution.

"The Fusion ioMemory architecture is
uniquely suited to innovation like the Extended Memory subsystem,"
said Chris Mason, Fusion-io director of kernel engineering and principal author
of the Btrfs file system for Linux. "Since
Fusion ioMemory has moved beyond legacy disk-era protocols, we can integrate
new features like the Extended Memory subsystem to truly advance application
performance for enterprise computing in ways that are simply not possible with
traditional SSDs."

The Extended Memory subsystem moves frequently accessed data pages into memory
on-demand while migrating rarely accessed data pages from DRAM into ioMemory.
This allows developers to simplify application design by assuming that entire
datasets are in-memory, without the costs associated with DRAM purchase and
operation. Application developers are able to further tune performance through
software development kit tools that lock selected pages into DRAM, giving
access to NAND flash as memory, instead of treating it as an extension of disk
storage. This allows legacy applications to scale up with flash memory, instead
of scaling out, boosting performance and reducing TCO.

"Fusion-io is proud to collaborate with the
world’s leading academic institutions and computer scientists to deliver
breakthroughs that help our customers and technology partners advance their
businesses," said Brent Compton, senior director of product management,
Fusion-io. "The ability to optimize
key operating system subsystems for flash with tools such as Extended Memory
simplifies performance for developers in ways that were out of reach just a
couple of years ago. We look forward to working with Princeton and other
engineering leaders to continue simplifying complexity in application
acceleration."