Astute ViSX Storage Removes Storage and Network I/O Constraints

Astute Networks, Inc.
announced that its ViSX G4 Flash VM Storage Appliance
has been featured in the Taneja Group  report, Accelerating I/O-Intensive Virtualized
Applications.

The Taneja Group profile outlines the
I/O performance constraints faced by most virtual environments and how the ViSX
G4 VM storage appliance accelerates virtualized application performance,
increases VM density and increases the number of VDI users.

"Key to the ready adoption of the Astute Networks ViSX VM storage
appliances is that it will drop seamlessly into an existing virtual
infrastructure," said the Taneja Group analysts in the report. "Delivering non-disruptive high-performance
flash solutions avoids forklift upgrades, ripping and replacing, or otherwise
re-architecting production environments. Astute has deliberately aimed at
Networked Flash as the most cost-effective way to leverage flash technology
because it puts the technology in the right place to be most effectively shared
while preserving current data protection and storage management practices. With
a focus on tight Hypervisor integration, the purpose-built ViSX G4 solves the
virtual I/O performance constraint in a matter of minutes with almost no impact
on the virtual server administrator."

The Taneja Group report explores the
range of mixed results for flash ‘optimizations,’ including flash in the
server, flash in the storage array and flash in the network. The report
concludes that the ideal solution to minimize virtual infrastructure disruption
is ‘networked flash,’ the concept of enabling high-performance I/O for virtual
environments by intelligently leveraging a shared flash appliance over common
Ethernet iSCSI storage networks.

The ViSX products employ a networked
flash architecture to maximize the utilization and performance of flash as
shared storage while optimizing both TCP and iSCSI traffic.

The report explains that using this
architecture, the appliances offer the following advantages:

• Provides shared high-performance storage
  with data protection that enables virtualization of demanding I/O intensive
  applications
• Leverages flash investment with a design
  to maximize both performance and efficiency
• Deploys in minutes without disruption to
  server operations, existing capacity storage or virtual server admin management
  processes

ViSX Flash-based VM storage appliances
are architected to deliver random IOPS performance and low IOPS per dollar, helping
to unleash the potential of virtualized datacenters. The Networked Flash
architecture of the appliance combines eMLC Flash solid state storage modules
with a custom 1/10GbE DataPump Engine network protocol processor that accelerates
network (TCP) and storage (iSCSI) protocol processing. Together, they eliminate
all of the critical I/O bottlenecks that can affect virtualized applications.
ViSX appliances also come with integrated in-line de-duplication to increase
the overall effective capacity. Unlike other traditional and flash storage
systems, the ViSX de-duplication technology has no impact on performance.

"Because of features like inline de-dupe and the custom DataPump Engine,
many other performance flash solutions will be hard pressed to match the IOPS/$
of the ViSX G4," concluded the Taneja Group report. "When benefits like increasing total VM
density, performance improvements for all VMs [by removing contention for
shared traditional storage], and new service opportunities are factored in, the
ViSX G4 should have an obvious ROI justification."

"The Taneja Group report underscores the benefits we know customers of
our ViSX Flash VM storage appliances experience everyday – dramatic performance
enhancements that help them realize the true value of their virtual
infrastructure investments," said Len Rosenthal, SVP of marketing,
Astute Networks. "We have worked
hard to deliver the high performance, cost efficiency and easy deployment
customers need for a rapid return that makes virtual environments both feasible
and cost-effective for their critical-applications."

To download Taneja Group Product Profile