Vision for Future of Flash Storage Platform by Violin Memory

Violin Memory, Inc. announced a vision for the future of its Flash Storage Platform (FSP).

FSP 7650

The company has continued to innovate since pioneering all-flash storage for enterprise data centers ten years ago. This manifests as the FSP 7650 and 7450 all flash arrays that leverage an all-flash storage platform that includes a suite of tightly integrated data services, across all arrays, in a single native OS, in combination of low latency, affordability, density, scalability, and performance. The firm also announces its vision that will incorporate technologies and introduce products to further lower latency, enhance data mobility, and facilitate cloud integration.

Company’s vision includes:

• Further lowering the low latency of FSP all-flash storage below the current 200μs consistent latency of the FSP 7650 solutions.

• Enhancing data mobility beyond the capabilities of FSP Stretch Cluster that now enables business continuance with zero RPO and RTO.

• Facilitating private, hybrid, and public cloud all-flash storage integration with Concerto in the cloud software products running in cloud environments and controlled on premise with Symphony and Concerto FSP software.

“Violin’s forward thinking design from inception enables, for example, the Flash Storage Platform all flash storage arrays to adapt seamlessly to meet the requirements of tomorrow,” said Tim Stoakes, chief architect, Violin. “This allows performance-sensitive databases and applications to take advantage of the lower latency of on-premise FSP solutions while other workloads can leverage the lower cost of public cloud storage.“

Violin Symphony
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Data mobility with Concerto in cloud
Company’s vision for enhancing the data mobility of FSP solutions includes a potential future software-defined storage (SDS) product — Concerto in the cloud — that could deliver a virtualized instance of the firm’s Concerto OS that could be deployed in private, hybrid, or public cloud environments. This could allow more data mobility options to support cloud-based applications such as backup, archive, or testing/development. It might also integrate with legacy storage in the cloud or enable a lower tier of storage than FSP solutions alone. Violin Symphony will enable Single Pane of Glass (SPOG) management, across FSP and private, hybrid or public cloud solutions.

Violin Inline Memory Modules

Lower latency with NVMe over fabric (NVMf)
Firm’s vision for further lowering the latency of FSP solutions includes future support for the NVMe and NVMf technologies and standards. The Flash Fabric Architecture (FFA) provides custom connections between Violin Inline Memory Modules (VIMMs) and other modules incorporated within FSP solutions and could facilitate supporting NVMe within FSPs and NVMf between them. The FSP 7650 support a minimum latency of 150μs, but NVMf could allow further reductions in latency.

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