FalconStor Software, provider of open data protection offerings and Violin Memory, a provider of memory appliances, have unveiled flash memory-based storage system that accelerates reads and writes for mission-critical applications as well as general SAN performance.
The FalconStor NSS SAN Accelerator doubles SAN performance, delivering high-speed access to stored data with minimal latency at a fraction of the cost of conventional offerings, the companies claim.
According to FalconStor, the NSS SAN Accelerator combines FalconStor Network Storage Server (NSS) Gateway, a Violin 1010 Flash Memory Appliance and FalconStor’s storage management software to create a virtual SAN out of new or existing storage resources while introducing a solid-state memory array as a caching platform for application data requiring the fastest input/output (I/O).
The NSS SAN Accelerator speeds up both writes and reads with two capabilities of FalconStor storage management software, SafeCache and HotZone features. The SafeCache capability allows a segment of the solid-state memory array to be devoted to application writes so that all disk writes can be received and acknowledged with low latency.
The HotZone capability accelerates the read process of specific applications, including random-access databases, and general SAN I/O by monitoring disk access patterns and then copying the hot data to a HotZone cache on the solid-state memory array for faster read access, the company said.
The Violin 1010 is a 4TB flash appliance that provides performance with sub-100uS deterministic latency and serviceability (including automatic active sparing and hot swap of flash modules).
Fadi Albatal, vice president of marketing for FalconStor, said: “There are no other solutions on the market today that can yield as much performance enhancement out of a modest investment in a solid-state tier of a virtualized SAN.
“FalconStor’s innovative storage management software intelligently and predictably accelerates reads and writes to the SAN on a global basis and is not exclusive to an application or a specific storage segment.”
