Violin Memory: All-Flash Storage Platform 7650 and 7450 Arrays

Violin Memory, Inc. announced two Flash Storage Platform (FSP) solutions, designed to disrupt the industry.

FSP-7650

The FSP 7650 and 7450 all-flash arrays leverage an all flash storage platform that includes a suite of integrated data services, across all arrays, in a single native OS, in the combination of ultra-low latency, affordability, density, scalability, and performance.

“Today, Violin Memory unveils the latest in a series of Violin Memory innovations that will fundamentally change the all flash array market, a market that Violin created ten years ago when it launched the industry’s first all flash array,” said Kevin DeNuccio, president and CEO, Violin. “This launch is all about how IT professionals can be instrumental by leveraging storage technology to enable their companies to do great things, whether that be via private, public or hybrid cloud environments.“

For mission critical database applications, data analytics and in-memory computing, the FSP 7650 is resetting the bar with consistent low latency of 200μs at one million IO/s – a fivefold improvement in latency versus the previous industry standard of one million IO/s at one millisecond latency. For applications where one millisecond meets latency requirements, the FSP 7650 can deliver two million IO/s.

“Most enterprises have at least several applications where extremely low storage latency can directly translate to increased revenues, better customer experience, or differentiated competitive advantage,” said Eric Burgener, research director, enterprise storage, IDC. “These applications tend to be transactional, database-driven or real-time analytics workloads where a 500 microsecond latency difference can be directly monetized. For these environments, AFA architecture can matter a great deal in an ability to consistently deliver sub 300μs performance that companies can base their reputation on, regardless of widely varying workloads and operational workflows.“

Flash storage platform 7650 and 7450
The FSP 7650 and 7450 all-flash storage systems set a new standard for all flash storage performance within enterprise data center SAN environments to achieve previously unattainable outcomes.

“With this launch, customers can now leverage the industry’s only all-flash storage platform that includes a full suite of tightly integrated data services, across all arrays, in a single native OS, giving Violin Memory industry leadership in the combination of ultra-low latency, affordability, density, scalability, and performance,” said Ebrahim Abbasi, COO, Violin.

FSP 7650 delivers performance with low latency at sustained high IO/s for demanding tier 0 environments including big data environments, data warehouses, and databases. FSP 7450 supports multiple and mixed tier 1 primary storage workloads-including databases, applications, virtualized infrastructure, and private/hybrid cloud-with data reduction that delivers large effective capacities at high performance to modernize enterprise data centers. Both include data-at-rest encryption that meets the demanding data encryption standards of FIPS-140-2 Level 2 and AES 256-bit XTS.

Source: Demartek
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• Lowest latency: FSP 7650 provides consistent low latency of 200μs at one million IO/s for extreme performance applications. For primary storage, FSP 7450 delivers 340,000 IO/s with consistent low latency of one millisecond in FC or iSCSI SAN environments.

• Best affordability: FSP systems require very low CAPEX and OPEX expenses and this improves the TCO and ROI of all-flash storage. For example, FSP 7450 features pricing ranging as low as $0.60 per gigabyte of effective storage capacity of up to 512TB while consuming less than 1,800W of data center power.

• High density: Integrated FSP all-flash storage solutions provide up to 1/2PB of effective capacity at typical 6-to-1 data reduction rates (FSP 7450) or 140TB of raw capacity (FSP 7650) in a single enclosure occupying three rack units of space.

• Scalability: With firm’s ScaleSmart featuring Pay-As-You-Grow, FSP 7450 systems can begin as small as 32TB effective capacity (8.8TB raw) and scale to 512TB effective (140TB raw) alone, or up to 5PB effective (1.4PB raw) with FSP 7700, in 32TB/8.8TB increments.

• Performance: Two million IO/s at one millisecond of latency, 1.7 million IO/s at 500μs, and one million IO/s at 200μs of consistent low latency (FSP 7650) and 340,000 IO/s at one millisecond (FSP 7450).

“The Violin Flash Storage Platform 7650 is an excellent choice for an all-flash array,” said Dennis Martin, president, Demartek LLC. “Of the SAN-attached storage systems that we have tested in our lab, this all-flash array provided the lowest consistent latency as measured at the host application servers that we have seen to date. Even with IO/s loads as high as two million IO/s, the latency was consistent and sub-millisecond.“

Evaluated FSP 7650 with focus on real-world workloads  (Demartek report)