At a time when primary data is increasingly being stored in Flash memory directly attached to a server, finding a way to make that data readily accessible to multiple servers has become a challenge.
To address that issue, Excelero this week made available version 1.1 of NVMesh Server SAN software that makes it possible for applications to see any logical volume regardless of where it happens to be physically located within a cluster.
Rather than being required to acquire dedicated storage hardware to share access to data, Josh Goldenhar, vice president of products, says NVMesh Server SAN software takes advantage of an NVMe backplane and network interface cards compatible with the Remote Direct Drive Access (RDDA) protocol.
That approach, says Goldenhar, means that IT organizations can configure an industry standard server with solid-state drives (SSDs) and Excelero software to provide millions of IOPs across hundreds of thousands of nodes of block storage at a fraction of the cost of dedicated SAN systems.
That performance, adds Goldenhar, is achieved without adding any overhead to the CPUs in any servers attached to that system.
Goldenhar says the core concept for NVMesh Server SAN puts techniques that web-scale companies have been using to drive massive I/O performance into an application that the average enterprise can consume.
“IT organizations can now do what hyperscaler companies have been doing for years across hundreds of developers,” says Goldenhar.
Flash memory is arguably the most transformative storage technology to come down the proverbial pike in a very long time. The issue now is to what degree IT organizations want to continue employing Flash memory within legacy storage architectures versus rethinking the entire paradigm altogether.
