Four New for Windows Flash Array Configurations by Violin

Violin Memory, Inc. announced the availability of a flexible pricing model that enables customers to align storage investment with capacity as it is consumed, along with four new Windows Flash Array (WFA) configurations.

For Violin Memory authorized resellers and their end-users, this offering addresses the need for all-flash storage solutions that meet the performance requirements of business critical applications with the data services provided by the WFA. In addition, the available capacity footprints allow their end-users to buy what they need and expand as business grows.

Violin Memory is adding 17.5, 26, 35, and 52TB configurations to the WFA product family. The new entry points address the market for lower raw capacity all-flash offerings, while delivering the enterprise resiliency and data services as the currently shipping WFA-64. The workhorse WFA configuration – with 70TB of raw capacity, scalable to 280TB – was announced in April and offers enterprise data services such as replication, snapshots, thin provisioning, deduplication, and compression.

“Our latest offerings deliver the transformative economics, performance, and data services of the WFA to customers who prefer to take a more incremental approach towards the all-flash data center,” said Eric Herzog, CMO, Violin. “The pay-as-you-grow option lets customers immediately benefit from WFA enterprise data services and performance capabilities while aligning capital expenditure with capacity as it is consumed.“

In addition to new capacity and price points, Violin’s pay-as-you-grow pricing model allows customers to scale their storage non-disruptively through new capacity software license-based expansion options that deliver 8.8TB increments of raw all-flash capacity.

This pay-as-you-grow approach enables customers to deploy the WFA and benefit from its performance and enterprise data services while increasing capacity over time.

Customers have a choice in how they interconnect the all-flash array with their existing infrastructure. The WFA family supports either 56GB FDR IB or 10GbE. In both cases, customers benefit from the efficiency and afforded by SMB Direct and the rest of the SMB 3.0 feature set.

In addition, the WFA supports NFS 3.0 and NFS 4.1 for connectivity with application servers running OSs such as Linux and UNIX. WFA-based file shares are available as Windows file shares over SMB 3 and as NFS exports to simplify data sharing across the data center. There are no artificial data silos separating SMB- and NFS-based applications with the WFA – just integration of all-flash storage.

Jointly developed with Microsoft Corp., the WFA is an all-flash array solution powered by Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 to deliver a set of storage features and data services for the enterprise. The performance of the WFA transforms data center economics, reducing CAPEX, OPEX, and TCO by receiving more value from their existing IT investments.

The Windows Flash Array enables enterprise workloads, including SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and Windows Server Hyper-V for both server and desktop virtualization, as well as enterprise-wide file servers to meet the needs of enterprises, while refocusing IT expenditure towards business innovation.

The WFA family was featured at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014

 “Few IT organizations today have the luxury of limiting themselves to a single storage protocol. On the other hand too many unified file and SAN storage systems emphasize one protocol while compromising the performance of the others. The Violin Windows Flash Array changes that by delivering high performance SMB 3, and NFS storage access without compromise,” said Marc Staimer, president, Dragon Slayer Consulting.

“The pay-as-you-grow option helps customers immediately benefit from the WFA’s enterprise data services while paying for additional capacity only when it is required. This is a great option for businesses that would prefer to move their workloads to an all-flash storage solution in a more incremental fashion,” said George Crump, founder, Storage Switzerland, LLC.

“Violin Memory’s new smaller size models and acquisition strategy of pay-as-you-grow recognizes the significance of flash for mid and enterprise markets. This opens up new opportunities for Violin and their partners as IT strives to deliver higher level performance for applications such as VDI and critical databases,” said Camberley Bates, MD, Evaluator Group.

“The new array capacities are appealing to businesses that want the transformative performance and economics of the WFA but who don’t need a large array today. In addition, users will favor them for secondary deployments in remote data centers,” said Robin Harris, president and chief analyst, TechnoQWAN, LLC.

“Violin Memory shares our philosophy that in the channel partner ecosystem, ‘less is more. We chose to work with Violin because they understand the importance of collaborative partnerships and bringing in deep industry and technical expertise. The breadth of Violin’s portfolio and the ease of partnering with them are critical to our mutual success. In addition, our business comes from both the sale of hardware as well as the delivery of services. Violin’s new channel program allows us to deliver on both,” said Kush Hathi, CEO, SoftNet Solutions, Inc.

“Violin has shown us that they are committed to supporting their partners with programs to drive revenue growth while delivering mission-critical solutions to our customers. Products such as the WFA will help solidify the long-term relationships with our mutual customers. The flexible pricing model will allow our customers to pay only for the capacity that they need and actually use. This is a huge win for those in the trenches of IT resource constraints,” said Mick Cooper, head of solution sales, Coal IT.

“For us, the Violin Memory partnership illustrates the ideal partner synergy. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we are pleased that the WFA provides onsite high-performance all-flash storage solutions for mid-size implementations that can easily interact with a Microsoft cloud environment. The ability to replicate and migrate data between onsite and cloud repositories addresses a critical need in our customer base,” said Chris Young, manager of advanced technology, Netrix LLC.

“The WFA launch is a welcome boon. It makes the incentive program for the product line being offered by Violin Memory, a substantial and viable business opportunity for both our customers and us. The new configurations for the product family address the demand for lower capacity all-flash offerings, without sacrificing the data management and enterprise features of the higher capacity models,” said Walter Borgsales director, Lake Solutions AG.