Startup PernixData virtualizes server-based flash

August 05, 2013

PernixData, a startup founded by VMware veterans, says its software can turn server-based flash storage into a resource shared across a standard VMware cluster of as many as 32 systems.Making that cache available across a whole cluster will let enterprises scale out their storage capacity with consistently fast access to data, according to co-founder and CEO Poojan Kumar, who previously managed VMware's data products. PernixData's product, called PernixData FVP (Flash Virtualization Platform), works without modifications to the hypervisor or applications and is designed to coexist with SANs (storage area networks), he said.Putting flash storage directly into servers is a growing solution to the need for faster access to data, but the technology's been limited to individual servers, so virtualized environments can't fully take advantage of it, according to PernixData. Clusters of virtualized servers typically share data over a SAN, which can raise performance problems, Kumar said. Multiple network hops and contention over a shared SAN link can all slow down access to the data that applications need.PernixData's software can turn flash cards on all the servers in a virtualized cluster into a shared cache, which serves as a tier of storage above a SAN for the most-used data. It's a software-only product and can use on-server flash that customers already have deployed. Announced on Tuesday, PernixData FVP is available immediately for US$7,500 per host for an enterprise package. It's initially for VMware environments, though ultimately it will work with multiple hypervisors, including KVM and Microsoft's Hyper-V, Kumar said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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