Violin Accelerates Network Storage With Multi-Terabyte NFS Cache

Violin Memory, Inc. unveiled vCACHE, a multi-terabyte capacity Network File System (NFS) cache.

Designed to accelerate performance for the most demanding enterprise applications, vCACHE eliminates upgrades, increases bandwidth and lowers user latency.

vCACHE integrates the patented NFS caching software from Gear6 with scalable Flash Memory Array technology from Violin Memory. vCACHE systems complement existing network attached storage (NAS) by centralizing massive pools of memory that serve data 10-to-50 times faster than mechanical disks, eliminating I/O bottlenecks and hotspots. Enterprises in many industries – including software and electronic design, energy and exploration, media delivery, information analytics, databases and video animation/production – are deploying NFS caching solutions from Violin to achieve performance gains, protect existing investments, avoid over-provisioning and guarantee service.

"The proven capability of Gear6 software and management integrated with the Violin memory array will now play a vital role in resolving the storage performance gap that exists in many data centers," said Don Basile, CEO of Violin Memory. "Our vCACHE NFS Caching system seamlessly augments broadly deployed NFS-based storage, quickly delivering both performance and cost-saving benefits to our customers."

Violin’s vCACHE expands to 15TB of useable cache and delivers over 300,000 NFS operations per second over eight 10GbE ports. In contrast, traditional NAS filers need 2,000 disk drives in five racks to deliver similar performance. Unlike embedded caches, which have limited scalability and a high cost per GB, vCACHE offers an order of magnitude more capacity and capability to accelerate large active datasets on multiple NAS filers, including enterprise NAS leaders such as NetApp.

"Flash memory solutions, such as vCACHE, that enable IT managers to integrate higher performance solid state storage quickly and efficiently are poised to make significant inroads in the data center and solutions markets," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager for solid state drives at IDC. "The combination of Gear6′s NFS caching software and Violin’s existing Flash Memory Arrays should prove to be a major benefit not only for the Gear6 customer installed base, but also for many other enterprise customers desiring to leverage solid state storage."

vCACHE uses a patent-pending combination of DRAM and Flash memory, leveraging the spike-free latency of Violin 3200 Memory Arrays to accelerate enterprise applications while preserving current infrastructure, file systems and storage management software. vCACHE achieves this performance while supporting current NAS features such as snapshots and deduplication.

Violin’s vCACHE systems are available now and priced from $40,000 – under $1 per NFS operation/sec.