Astute Unveils Next-Generation VM Storage Solution Powered By Datapump Engine

In an effort to maximize the advantages of server virtualization, Astute Networks, Inc. has come up with its next-generation ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliance.

Based on Astute's 100 percent Networked Flash architecture and game-changing patented DataPump Engine, the firm’s ViSX family of products was designed to enable IT organizations to confidently virtualize and deploy business-critical applications while eliminating costly over-provisioning of IT infrastructure.

The recently released ViSX G4 is capable of increasing VM density to accelerate virtual machine performance by up to 10 times, its maker said in a recent statement.

Virtualization often taxes traditional storage and network resources. To overcome this challenge, companies often over-provision their storage resources to gain more throughput, or they simply don't virtualize the majority of their business-critical applications.

Solid state devices added to servers and to legacy SAN and NAS systems only address a part of the problem. But they are expensive, disruptive to deploy and not optimally designed for highly virtualized environments.

ViSX has just the right capabilities for overcoming VM storage and network performance barriers. ViSX solutions, according to the maker, are engineered to deliver tightly fused, high-performance, low power solutions that remove all storage and network I/O constraints to dramatically accelerate virtual machine and application performance.

The new ViSX G4 Flash VM storage appliances work seamlessly with all virtualization platforms including VMware vSphere, Microsoft (News - Alert) Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Red Hat RHEV.

They complement existing SAN or NAS infrastructures, with a non-disruptive, additive and highly optimized flash-based datastore tier and satisfies the demands of today's business-critical applications such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), cloud computing and big data.

According to Astute, ViSX is capable of quickly and efficiently provisioning up to 140,000 sustained random IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) that is fully shareable by all virtual machines on all hosts over pervasively deployed 10Gb or 1Gb Ethernet networks – all in a cost-effective, multi-terabyte and easy-to-deploy standard 2U rack mount device.

“The battle is on for enabling mission critical applications to be brought under the purview of VMware and thereby gain all the advantages server virtualization has to offer. But this is easier said than done,” Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst at Taneja Group, explained in a recent report. “The culprit is unquestionably storage. A number of vendors are trying to solve this problem using flash's I/O performance advantages over HDDs.”

“Astute Networks has applied its unique expertise in chip design and I/O stack acceleration to achieve an unprecedented combination of Flash performance, deployment simplicity, and low cost to meet the needs of virtual server administrators,” the analyst added. “The DataPump Engine allows them to deliver wire speed on 10 GbE and inline data deduplication without impacting IOPs or throughput. Virtual server managers will find this innovative approach worth evaluating.” 

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