VMworld Briefing Note - Avere
As we wrote about in a recent entry on our blog on Network Computing, IOPS are becoming critical for increasing virtual machine density and many vendors are trying to figure out how to add additional IOPS power to their existing system by leveraging solid state technology and faster mechanical hard drives. But as we wrote in our article “Architecting Storage Networks for Data Delivery vs. Data Services” faster mechanics will only take you so far.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The potential solution is a system like Avere FXT series of demand-driven storage that are focused on performance instead of data services. The team at Avere have written a performance focused operating system that moves data at a block level from your performance constrained existing storage to a high performance IOP accelerator. Active data is available from a combination of RAM, FLASH and 15K SAS disk. Essentially it acts as a cache to your existing storage. A new component is the ability for the Avere systems to support multiple mass storage backends from a variety of different vendors at the same time.
George Crump, Senior Analyst
VMworld Briefing Note
Storage Switzerland is at VMworld in force again this year and as in years past we will be doing our best to bring you continuous updates from the event. These reports are quick summaries of our meetings at the show; look for more detailed analysis on our blogs on Network Computing.
The news from Avere at VMworld was their achievement of VMware ready status. So they are a fully supported platform and as a result an even safer bet for virtualized environments. Basically these systems become the new high performance front end to your existing storage platform. You use the FXT to get the IOPS you need to increase virtual machine densities and leverage your existing, trusted data services to protect and manage that data. The net result is greater ROI from your virtual server infrastructure without having to replace your existing storage system. A key factor here is that you also don’t replace or have to relearn your data practices either.
