Astute Networks ViSX OS V5 Adding NFS V2, V3, and V4 to iSCSI Support

Astute Networks, Inc. announced the ViSX OS v5, a software for the ViSX family of performance storage appliances.

The ViSX offer all solid state flash performance at a low cost-per-gigabyte and the high IO/s per dollar, with prices comparable to HDD drive systems. The latest OS release adds NFS v2, v3, and v4 to its existing iSCSI support. It also offers a range of capacity options to suit the growing demand for high application performance in both physical and virtual environments, including OpenStack support for cloud deployments.

“We consider ViSX OS v5 a quantum leap from a niche playing flash array to a major contender in the storage business. This is because the move from a block-only device to a fully featured file server with NSFv4, coupled with an aggressive OpenStack strategy and the inherent network efficiency of the ViSX DataPump architecture creates a highly desirable feature set, particularly for the mid-market at a value price,” said Jim Bagley, senior analyst, SSG-NOW.

The DataPump engine in each ViSX appliance makes that performance possible by offloading and accelerating network (TCP) and storage (iSCSI, NFS) protocol processing, while leveraging ViSX’s networked flash architecture. It also bring support of NAS deployments with implementation of NFS v2 and v3, as well as NFS v4.

Tailored for virtual environments, as well as physical infrastructure, appliances streamline virtual implementation and management through a VMware vCenter plug-in tab for vSphere environments. Users can also choose to use the built-in FlashWRX web-based management interface with any other hypervisor platform including Hyper-V, Xen and RHEV, as well as any physical environment.

It plugs into the existing 1GbE or 10GbE infrastructure, and can improve application response times – by up to 10X – without the often disruptive deployments required by other solutions. Instead, it complements investments in storage, often freeing up capacity for other uses and eliminating the need for purchases for enhanced ROI.

In VDI deployments, it continues to offer low cost per VDI user, delivering reduced cost but also improved application responsiveness and performance. For critical applications such as SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and SharePoint , ViSX delivers a performance boost of 5 to 10 times, depending on the existing physical or virtual infrastructure. It can also be used to accelerate access to data in non-relation, object-based data stores.

It also delivers advantages for CSPs with support for OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. With OpenStack, CSPs are enabled to offer their IaaS offerings to performance-constrained environments to enhance user productivity and lower IT costs.

“To enable their businesses to become more agile and responsive while making users more productive, IT professionals are facing the challenge to assure high application performance and availability while reducing overall IT costs and resource requirements,” said Jeff Whitney, VP marketing, Astute. “That is precisely the focus of the newest release of the ViSX OS. It delivers outstanding all-flash performance while co-existing with installed storage for both physical and virtual environments. As a result, organizations achieve faster, consistent and predictable application performance while achieving a rapid ROI.“

The ViSX performance storage appliance is available in a capacities up to 45.6TB in a single 2U platform, and add-on flash modules are available in sizes of 480GB, 960GB and 1,900GB.