With Flash storage increasingly being installed directly on servers, IT organizations are looking for ways to maximize those investments across as many applications as possible without having to necessarily acquire an all-Flash storage array.
To address that issue, PernixData came up with storage management software for server-side Flash storage, called PernixData FVP, the latest version of which released today, adding support for adaptive compression, intelligent I/O profiling and role-based access controls.
Jeff Aaron, vice president of marketing for PernixData, says that over 350 customers have now adopted PernixData FVP software to optimize their usage of server-side Flash storage. Because server-side Flash provides the highest level of performance, IT organizations don’t want to have to deploy an array to make that storage available to multiple applications.
PernixData FVP software plugs directly into the hypervisor in a way that eliminates the need to overprovision Flash storage on servers, says Aaron. In addition, Aaron says that the ability to intelligently profile data means that IT organizations no longer have to pollute the server with data that can be passed through to other storage systems rather than processed in Flash memory.
IT organizations are deploying Flash on servers because it removes a lot of the headaches associated with trying to optimize application performance using magnetic disk storage. Flash storage may be a little more expensive than magnetic storage. But when you add up all the time saved optimizing the performance of magnetic storage, the reasons to move to Flash memory for primary storage go well beyond the performance of the applications.