Fusion-io Scales ioTurbine Caching Software

Fusion-io, Inc. announced an ioTurbine caching software update that enhances performance and manageability for large-scale enterprise environments.

With ioTurbine caching and ioMemory solutions, enterprises can add flash memory performance to their environment ahead of shared storage refresh cycles.

Fusion-io also unveiled a new Fast Flash program to help IT professionals evaluate the performance and business benefits of introducing caching to their data center systems.

“Caching technology is a powerful tool for large-scale enterprises looking to add the value of flash performance without forklift SAN replacements,” said Lee Caswell, Fusion-io VP, virtualization products group. “With new one-click application caching and streamlined centralized management, ioTurbine intelligently directs application performance to server-side flash, while preserving the data protection and capacity benefits of shared storage. Powerful new caching algorithms redirect billions of operations from SANs to servers to make enterprise data centers more efficient.”

Server and storage systems have long relied on caching to speed local performance. The practice of caching across the data center is rapidly growing since server flash is 1,000 times less expensive than disk drives when examined in a cost per operation analysis. The cost reductions and performance benefits accumulate quickly for customers at scale.

A Fusion-io healthcare customer reported that caching with ioTurbine enabled it to offload 1.6 billion operations from its SAN in a recent 30-day period.

“Caching can drive improved I/O efficiency and cost savings by ensuring that servers and storage each focus on their core respective competencies of performance and capacity,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “These latest updates from Fusion-io add significant breakthroughs for caching at scale to ioTurbine’s real-world-tested solution, and extend its ability to not only deliver improved application performance but also work within constrained IT budgets.”

When caching is used to support hundreds or thousands of VMs, data management becomes a critical consideration. ioTurbine offers common management across physical and virtual servers to simplify deployment at scale. The new software is also optimized for integration with central management reporting solutions such as VMware vCenter and is tolerant of widely distributed environments typical of regional or branch offices.

“Server caching helps enterprises accelerate the value of their IT infrastructure with a solution that maximizes the potential of both servers and shared storage,” said David Gleessales manager at Fusion-io reseller Triforce in Australia. “With software-optimized intelligence, Fusion ioTurbine uniquely delivers the benefits of flash caching even as workloads scale to support hundreds of VMs per server.”

Fusion-io is also introducing the ioTurbine Fast Flash program, which offers non-intrusive assessments of specific customer workloads, ROI analysis, hands-on integration support, and volume pricing for companies adding caching in multiple servers. Launching now and continuing until the end of the VMware Partner Exchange conference in February 2014, the Fast Flash program provides a way to integrate caching solutions while learning from flash memory and caching experts.

ioTurbine software is available and is licensed by physical or virtual server for use with ioMemory products sold by Fusion-io or its reseller partners.

The software can also be purchased as an ioCache flash memory bundle which includes a software license and ioMemory device.

The Fusion-io Profiler tool is available as a free download after registration.